


A Most Productive Industry

by verybadhedgehog



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Comedy, F/M, M/M, butlers and valets, country house gatherings, period typical closeted homosexuality, science and technology, the arts, the british upper classes at play, vaguely wodehousian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 01:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16965096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verybadhedgehog/pseuds/verybadhedgehog
Summary: Set in an idealised semi-fictional interwar England (along somewhat Wodehousian lines) — Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux meet and immediately get off on the wrong foot. Circumstances bring them together and their rivalry deepens. Meanwhile, Ren's mother Lady Organa-Solo desperately wants her son back in the family fold, and enlists the help of her trusty young friends Poe Dameron and Guy Thornalley. When serious crimes committed by the mysterious Snoke come to light, both Leia and Hux end up taking action.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Art by GenerallyHuxurious — absolute pleasure to work with you (edit - I forgot to say in this note that Gen was a pinch hitter and admirably stepped up to the plate to produce the illustrations under tight time pressure.) 
> 
> notes on the work:  
> Obviously, everyone in this is A Human and has a human name, thus there has been a little ho-ho-ho word play. Poe Dameron's canon Abednedo wingman C'ai Threnalli is our new friend Guy Thornalley (I initially sketched out the work with him as first person narrator, along the lines of Bertie Wooster, and although it made the prose hella zippy, it caused problems with scenes that needed to be close observation of Kylo and Hux).  
> Various droids have been rendered as butlers, valets and secretaries. Threepio = Leia's butler Mr Treeby; BB-8 = Poe's valet B.B; R2D2 = Luke's secretary Arthur Deayton, KayFour = Armitage Hux's valet Kay Ford.  
> This has about three plots in it, which is three more than I'm used to working with. I think I have who-knew-what-when squared away, and I'm crossing my fingers that you don't notice any major holes.  
> As this is set in a sort of quasi-utopian inter-war London, more or less following Plum's own rubric, you may find that historical factors have been skated over — I barely mention the war itself, for example. I have dipped into matters colonial in a light hearted story that cannot possibly give a sufficient treatment thereof. But otherwise it's mainly fun and frolics. Snoke is the big baddy, and Leia is in it quite a lot. Other Star Wars favourites are in the background (please feel free to ask me what they're up to, I have more story than could be told here)

Lady Carise Sindian had sent out invitations to a select group of friends, acquaintances and those she was trying to impress, and they had duly piled into cars and onto trains, and arrived at Birren Great Hall for the weekend. There would be dinner on Friday, pastimes on Saturday, and a cocktail party (with more invitees) on Saturday evening.

This was the first real get together she’d had since inheriting the place from old Lord Mellowyn, the Baron of Birren. She, and to an approximate extent her husband Sir William Sindian, were very keen to impress.

There was already a certain level of what one wouldn’t call disquiet as much as mildly concerned interest regarding the lineup of fellow guests. Having the Huxes in the same place as Leia Organa-Solo would be considered a bold move at the best of times, but with both their families having a link to the Birren estate, yet neither being the current owner; it all seemed rather delicate. An uneducated observer might have assumed that Lady Carise simply wanted to rub their noses in her success, but the situation was more subtle. Lady Carise was a woman of some cunning, and it appeared rather as though she was wanting to test their mettle, to winkle out any dissatisfaction or pique with having been less favoured in Lord Mellowyn’s will than she had been. Now, Lady Organa-Solo was odds-on to pass the test, having proven herself able to deftly juggle the gelignite in social situations more perilous than this, but one could not be quite as sure about Brendol Hux.

 

***

Personnel were gathering before dinner, forming little clusters in the West Wing Old Library. Lady Carise’s friend Ransolm Casterfo was there, hair slicked neatly into place, sherry glass already in hand. 

Guy Thornalley, who was usually to be found in close proximity to Poe Dameron, exchanged a very brief how-do-you-do with Casterfo. It was fair to say that he found Casterfo, like the sherry, best in small doses. Ransolm Casterfo’s fussy self-regard was more tolerable, though, than that of Armitage Hux, currently to be found standing slightly awkwardly by a mantelpiece.

A girl entered the Old Library, and Thornalley’s attention was momentarily taken. She was fairly attractive, with chestnut hair and striking light grey eyes set off by a lovely pearl-coloured evening frock.

Lady Carise, resplendent in a heliotrope evening gown, swooped in like a raptor. “Ah, Mr Thornalley! How splendid to see you, and you’re looking so well. Allow me to present to you Miss Iphigenia Morton.”

“How do you do,” the girl said, and extended her hand. Thornalley shook it. “Call me Iffy, please,” she said.

“Pleased to meet you. Guy, by the way.”

“And Armitage! Do come over.”

He did as he was bid, and smart observers would have noted a slight twinge of resentment, in being practically ordered about by a woman who wasn’t too much older than he was. Armitage was, like Guy, in his mid twenties, and Lady Carise was barely thirty-three. Which was far far younger than Sir William.

“Armitage Hux, Iphigenia Morton.”

Hands were shaken once again.

“Miss Morton doesn’t know many people here — she’s met our Mr Casterfo. I’m sure you’ll keep each other company,” Lady Carise purred, and I’ll have you introduced to everyone before long.”

She continued her rounds of the room, her unctuous welcome having the quality of a rather rich hollandaise sauce.

“Drink, Hux?” Thornalley asked, in an act of measured politeness.

“Already got one,” Hux snapped.

Casterfo joined the three, and made some rather dully polite comment about the room and its decor and architecture. Thornalley and Miss Morton exchanged a brief look. It seemed she also found Casterfo not the most scintillating company. Attention was momentarily drawn away, however as Lady Leia Organa-Solo and her assistant Miss Sella entered, to be greeted effusively by Lady Carise.

“Ah, the Princess,” Casterfo said, gazing at the just-arrived pair of ladies with that rather affected deference of his. Armitage Hux gave a thin and evidently forced smile. Thornalley restrained himself from rolling his eyes.

The older Huxes, Sir Brendol and Lady Maratelle, were next to make an appearance and Lady Carise laid it on extremely thick, not to say suspiciously so, in her compliments on Maratelle’s dress and jewellery. Sir Brendol, his moustaches giving him the air of an irascible walrus, took a glass of whisky-and-something and joined Sir William Sindian, and another older fellow, Captain Moden Canady (RN, rtd).

Thornalley was just in the right place to take note of young Hux’s reaction when the older Hux joined the assembly. Barely diluted loathing, he would call it, though Armitage concealed it as soon as paterfamilias cast his jaundiced eye about the room.

Poe Dameron rushed in, still adjusting his bow tie, and Thornalley greeted him as though he were a column of relieving forces arriving at a besieged city. Casterfo went forth to ingratiate himself with the newcomers, and Armitage Hux returned to his position at the mantelpiece. Miss Morton, for her part, was buoyed to make the acquaintance of Mr Dameron.

Lady Carise’s butler rang the second dinner gong and all present trooped into the dining room. It was decked out rather marvellously — for when Lady Carise sets out to show off, she really takes a run-up at the thing and punts hard.

The guests gazed around them and made the appropriate noises of wonderment, and then peered at place settings until they found their allotted positions. Armitage was sitting away from his father, with Canady and Miss Sella. Poor old Poe had, for his sins, been put with Lady Hux and Edrison Peavey, another Navy man who fitted in with the Huxes and Sindians somehow. Thornalley was in between Iffy Morton and Mrs Canady.

Soup was served. Leia and Sir William Sindian discussed the house.

“It’s a wonderful place, Sir William. And of course you and Carise have the household to manage it.”

“We shall be taking on more staff, I don’t wonder,” said Sir William. “Not that we intend the full last-century setup, but there will be opportunities, perhaps for the young people of the area. So important to give opportunities, don’t you think?”

“Quite so,” Leia said.

“It’s a grand project for Carise, and I do feel she’s in her element,” Sir William continued. “Not a good thing to let a young wife get bored,” he said, and glanced briefly down the table at Maratelle Hux, who fortunately for him was sufficiently engaged in conversation with Poe Dameron to not notice.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve been bored for one day in my whole life.”

“Well. No. But your situation is unusual.”

“Perhaps so, Sir William, perhaps so.”

 

***

 

Dinner was really most pleasant from a culinary point of view, the Birren Great Hall cook, Mrs Jackson, being well known as more than a dab hand with the old pots and pans. Mrs Canady pronounced the saddle of lamb and buttered runner beans to be “exquisite,” a sentiment vocally shared by Colonel Hux, and by acclamation, the table as a whole.

Turning to Iffy Morton, Thornalley quietly voiced his confusion over having been invited at all. “I’m not entirely sure why Lady C summoned me here,” he said “Or Dameron. Could be to make up the numbers, but we’re fourteen as it is, so she may as well have left both of us out.”

“Not entirely sure why I’m invited for that matter,” said Iffy. “Maybe I’m the one who’s to make up the numbers. Or perhaps she wanted a few younger people about the place.”

“I think there are more younger folk coming along tomorrow for the cocktail party.”

“Oh, that’ll be nice. Not that I’m not enjoying the company.”

“Oh. Well. Quite. Ha ha.”

 

***

 

After dinner, the ladies had retired and port was being passed. Poe Dameron came and sat next to Guy Thornalley in the seat recently vacated by Miss Morton.

“Bearing up?” Thornalley asked.

“Not too bad,” Dameron said. “The quality of the feed bag here makes up for most things. And honestly I don’t mind Eddie Peavey too much — he’s quite funny when he lets down his guard.”

Thornalley took this under advisement.

“I still haven’t figured out why the lady of the house invited me or you. And Miss Morton wasn’t too sure where she fit in, either.”

“Oh, I rather think she wanted everyone into two teams. The Hux side and the Organa side. We’re supporting personnel for Leia’s team, and you have the Canadys and Peavey for the other.”

“Huh. Might as well get everyone out on the lawn for a footer match.”

Poe chuckled. The port passed their way and both filled their glasses.

“Plus I think she’s trying to make a match for you.”

“Oh, not necessarily.”

Poe raised an eyebrow.

“Iffy’s a lovely girl, I won’t lie,” Thornalley admitted. “It doesn’t, ah, change anything, though. So far. Or needn’t.”

“Don’t worry about it, Guy. I shan’t.”

They joined the ladies in the drawing room, and found that Lady Organa-Solo wowing them with tales of her youth.

“And then,” Lady-Organa Solo was saying, “he realised that I was still holding the revolver. And he backed down fairly tout-de-suite.”

In this respect it would certainly appear that the males of the species had come up rather short in the after-dinner conversation stakes.

 

***

 

Morning, after a good and hearty breakfast (the kedgeree being another dish to meet with Colonel Hux’s vocal approval), was fairly quiet.

Sir William, Colonel Hux, Casterfo and Peavey had gone to the nearby golf course for a round, Lady Organa-Solo was playing fetch with the dogs on the lawn, and it was believed that the younger Hux was off practising his billiards. Poe, charitable love for his fellow man fuelled by bacon, eggs and hot coffee, was possibly giving him a game.

A late and informal luncheon was taken, and after it had settled, Iffy Morton suggested a stroll in the grounds, to which Guy Thornalley readily agreed. Lady Carise was quite encouraging in the matter.

Poe Dameron met them around the duck pond, and Korrie Sella came to join them.

“This is very pleasant,” said Korrie. “I don’t often get the chance to get out of town.”

“The Princess keeps you busy, I know,” Poe said.

“Ah,” Iffy said, “you refer to Lady Organa as the Princess, and so did Mr Casterfo last evening, I noticed. Forgive my curiosity and I shall back off if it’s out of place, but…”

Poe and Korrie exchanged a quick glance, and Korrie gave him the nod.

“She is of royal extraction,” Poe said, “and is still a princess of the Grand Duchy of Alderaan.”

“Thought it doesn’t exist as such any more,” Korrie added. “Since, you know, the war and the peace and all that.”

“She doesn’t use the title when she’s in England,” Poe continued, “so really it’s me who’s in the wrong. But she’s always been royalty to me, and that’s how I think of her.”

“Lady Carise is just plain Lady Carise, isn’t she?”

“Oh yes.”

“Ah,” said Iffy. “That would explain the sense I had of a dirty great chip on her shoulder when it came to Lady Organa-Solo.”

Poe, Guy and Korrie all found this suitably amusing.

“That is very perspicacious,” said Guy Thornalley.

“You can say _that_ again with a mouthful of toffees,” teased Poe.

The young people meandered back to the house, and trooped along the terrace to where the big French windows were open. In the drawing room, tea was being taken. Mr Casterfo was dandyish in a royal blue lounge suit and aquamarine tie. He and Lady Organa-Solo were buttering slices of Dundee cake, breaking off corner portions and taking turns to surreptitiously feed them to Lady Carise’s Pekinese. The Canadys were also present, partaking of the sandwiches.

“Tea, Miss Morton, Miss Sella?” Lady Carise said, noticing them. “And the gentlemen?”

They accepted, and she poured, then sent the maid for a fresh pot. Dameron sat and took a piece of cake.

“Lady Organa,” Captain Canady said, “I never had the chance to ask after Captain Solo. How is he? Off in his flying boat?”

“Yes, indeed, with Rey.” Rey was the ward of Leia and her husband, Han Solo. She had been an orphan, and Han had rescued her from penury on one of his long overseas trips. What Han and Leia’s son Benjamin, an only child, must have made of suddenly acquiring a quasi-sister had never been much discussed.

“Oh, is Ben not with him?” Canady said.

A pained expression flickered across Lady Organa’s face, but she held firm. “No. He is not.”

It was apparent that Captain Canady had perpetrated something of a floater. His wife shot him a brief testy look to underline the fact.

Lady Carise cut in. “You were telling me last night, Leia, that they were on their way up the East African coast.”

“That’s right. Han isn’t aiming for pure speed on this journey, so there will be a few stop offs, to pick up passengers and cargo.”

“So, is it just the two of them?” asked Mrs Canady. “Wouldn’t like to think of the young girl practically on her own while Captain Solo is working.”

“There’s Mr Chewbacca. And Finn, too,” Poe said. “And all four of them work, not only Captain Solo.” 

Finn, or Mr Olofinjana to be more formal, was a Nigerian gentleman from an apparently distinguished family in the region who had joined Han Solo’s crew. He was a great wit, a solid friend and an extremely good egg all around, according to Poe Dameron. Finn and Rey were in the early stages of courting, though neither Lady Organa-Solo nor Poe thought this the best moment to venture that particular information to the Canadys and Lady Carise.

Mrs Canady made a disapproving huff even without it having been mentioned.

The girls chose this is a most opportune moment to go upstairs and change into the cocktail clobber. Thornalley followed suit.

 

***

 

More guests were beginning to arrive by car, and the younger people already in residence took the opportunity to wait until there was a bit more life going on downstairs before making their appearance.

When Poe Dameron and Guy Thornalley descended, they found once again Armitage Hux leaning on the mantelpiece, surrounded this time by a team of four hangers on. The bunch of them rather gave the effect of a nest of vicious little stoats, all white bibs and mean faces.

Now, most right thinking people prefer to be several gins in before attempting social interaction with Armitage and his friends. Paze is almost malevolently dull, Opan has the air of a part-time poisoner, Lewis believes riches are a substitute for personality, and Hux is, well, Hux. Of all of them, Dopheld Mitaka is the most acceptable, and, if isolated from the gang and carefully reintroduced to civilisation, could be relatively decent.

Dameron and Thornalley were both members of the same London club as the Hux posse, and so were more or less accustomed to them, although the idea of making the trip out into the country only to be faced with the exact same faces one sees in town struck them as rather a rigged old game.

Avoiding them brought Poe Dameron into conversation with a ruddy faced chap who turned out to be the local Member of Parliament. Although this was not to be for long, as the man shortly revealed his intention to step down and retire at the next election.

“Young Casterfo will get my seat,” the man said. “Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed: the local party committee have given him the nod already.”

Poe nodded. “He’s certainly very keen. Ambitious.”

“A lot of you are these days, I seem to notice.”

“Well. Erm, perhaps.” Poe shrugged.

The man squinted at him. “You are the Poe Dameron who races motor cars, aren’t you?”

“Indeed so. I suppose I keep my ambitions to that arena.”

“Very good, very good,” the man said.

Meanwhile, Armitage Hux and his friends were attempting to get Lady Organa-Solo to subscribe to their particular views about Education For The Masses.

“It has to be the responsibility of the better class to educate the masses,” Armitage was saying. “We must pass on the proper values, and give a robust, facts-based education.”

“Too true,” said one of his friends. “Too great an opportunity to miss.”

“But it has to be done properly.”

“That’s an easy statement to agree with,” Lady Organa-Solo said. “But it depends what you mean by properly. Your idea and my idea may be miles apart.”

“Well, that’s possible. I certainly think my idea of what’s proper would differ from Master Skywalker’s ideas.” Armitage attempted a smile. “Temple Court is all very well, a charming school for a certain set, but we can’t all be Temple Court.”

Leia Organa-Solo’s brother Luke Skywalker was the headmaster of Temple Court, a small school in North Devon. It was a rather alternative establishment, and as such not at all what Armitage Hux, his father Sir Brendol, orArmitage’s friends, would consider ‘proper’.

“And neither would I wish you to be,” Leia rejoined. “What you don’t see is that it’s the potential for alternatives, and choice, and freedom, that’s important. Yes to the robust education, but also yes to learning how to learn independently — which is what really sets one up for life by the way — and all that in an environment which suits.”

One of Armitage’s friends audibly scoffed.

“Though I hardly think that cold showers at six of the a.m and beatings are exactly an environment which suits everyone,” said Lady Organa-Solo, her eyes meeting each of the young men’s in turn.

Armitage sniffed.

“Ah, well, there it is. Perhaps being a foreigner, you won’t ever quite see our English ways.”

“Oh, I can assure you I see very well indeed,” she said, a little more steel apparent in her tone.

Dameron and Thornalley had met up again, and fallen into conversation with Eddie Peavey. He was taking great pleasure in describing the round of golf he’d had with Mr Casterfo that morning. And indeed Mr Casterfo joined the conversation part way through to retell how he had got up and down in three from a nasty piece of thick rough on the seventh.

The party was by now in reasonable swing. A footman came in, making his way through small groups of guests, and got Lady Organa-Solo’s attention.

“Call on the telephone for you, ma’am.”

“Oh?”

“It’s Mr Treeby, ma’am.”

Mr Treeby was the Organa-Solo’s butler, and the merest mention of his name had Lady Organa-Solo hurrying out into the hall. Not two minutes later, however, she was back. She first approached Lady Carise, and had a brief conversation with her in which a lot of gracious apology seemed to feature. After a very short exchange with Miss Sella, Leia then came around to Dameron and Thornalley. Something had come up and it required her immediate personal attention. No, it wasn’t anything directly to do with Han, or Ben, but it couldn’t be avoided. Dameron and Thornalley saw her off with a kiss on the cheek, and she went to help her maid pack.

“Wonder what that was all about,” Poe said. “Can’t have been Treeby being over-dramatic if the Princess saw fit to cut and run.”

“Perhaps we shall find out when we get back to town. I’d say ask Miss Sella but I don’t think there’ll be any beans spilled there, somehow.”

“Hmm. I’ll see.”

They split up, Poe gravitating over to Miss Sella while Guy Thornalley continued to circulate about the room.

Thornalley made the very smallest of talk with Armitage Hux, who agreed that Birren Great Hall was “quite a pile.” The envy in him was palpable. He must have envisaged his father getting his hands on the place, and he himself eventually inheriting it.

A maid came around with a fresh tray of canapés, and Thornalley took one, before joining up with Iffy Morton and another young lady. Miss Morton had a champagne cocktail in each hand, and pressed one on Thornalley, who took it most gratefully.

The footman at the door cleared his throat and announced a group, a rather late-coming group, as Kylo Ren and the ‘Knights of Ren’. This was met with muted sniggering from some quarters of the room, and a roll of the eyes from the footman. The leader of this group of four young men and two young women, a long-haired and forbidding-looking chap with the build of a college rower, glared and the sniggering stopped. The newcomers continued to draw looks, however, and it would be both easy and accurate to blame this on their unconventional state of dress. Among the men, unusually broad and long silk scarves were draped about shoulders, and bow ties were tied idiosyncratically. The girls were wearing makeup that verged on the vampiric, and one of them had exceedingly close-cropped hair.

“Get a bloody haircut,” a voice could be heard from the more aged end of the room.

“I did,” the short-haired girl’s voice sang out.

“Lord save us from these arty types,” said another of the senior contingent, the clever money being on Peavey.

“Let’s get drinks,” one of the newcomers said.

“If we’ve come all this way we should at least have drinks,” said another.

The leading chap marched his gang over to the sideboard, sweeping fellow guests aside in front of him, and they all mixed themselves rather strong potions.

“Adequate,” said the leader, upon taking a sip from a martini glass. His followers nodded, then began their own drinks.

Some murmuring went on around the room, but by and large people turned back to their own conversations. Cutting glances, however, were being exchanged between Armitage Hux and his followers, and these Knights of whatever they were. Looks up and down, narrowed eyes, flared nostrils: the whole thing.

Armitage then stepped forward and asked the lead chap just who he thought he was, and the chap responded, looking right down his excessively beaky nose, that he was Kylo Ren and these were his friends.

“And were you even invited?”

“Of course we were invited,” this Kylo Ren said, haughtily. “By the lady of the house. Though I don’t see what business it is of yours.”

Another pair of eyes fixed on the broad shouldered newcomer were those of Poe Dameron. “Oh, holy bloody Moses,” he muttered under his breath.

“What is it?” whispered Thornalley, keen to avoid the attention of either faction.

“Shh, here comes our hostess.”

“Ah, Kylo Ren, how lovely to see you.” So she was on the right page regarding names and address.

“Lady Carise. Your hospitality is exemplary.”

She looked over the group of friends, assessing them, and appeared to accept them. “Indeed,” she said, sweetly. “You just missed Lady Organa-Solo, by the way. She was called away unexpectedly.”

Kylo gripped his cocktail glass tightly. “Oh,” he said. “How unfortunate.”

His friends, the so-called Knights, raised their glasses in a sort of toast, possibly an ironic one.

Hackles had risen among the Hux gang almost instantly upon the arrival of the newcomers, but now Armitage appeared the very personification of green-eyed jealousy himself. His smaller number of camp followers formed up behind him, and appeared to be giving him some sort of encouragement.

The picture now was of Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren standing a yard apart, facing off against each other, with their respective hangers-on standing behind each of them. One had the impression of being in a Wild West saloon just before the bullets start flying. Some fought the instinct to duck under the table.

Tritt Opan stepped forward and was sizing up one of the Ren brethren.

“Leave it, Tritt,” Armitage said, and his friend seemed to stand down somewhat. Had the assembly been in foreign climes or bygone times, one would have anticipated a glove being thrown down in preparation for a duel.

The situation, as far as it was making itself apparent, was this. The junior Hux brigade were mightily put out by the very existence of the Kylo Ren gang. Excessively so, by any standard. It was one thing to react badly to a rival group of young men making moves on their turf, such that it was — but of course Armitage and his fellows weren’t on their own turf: they were on Lady Carise’s. It could only be put down to jealousy. Armitage Hux fancied himself the leader of a little set, and now another little set had turned up with striking attire and an even worse collective attitude, and like the spoilt child he was, Armitage Hux did not like it.

“Won’t have you creating a bloody scene, boy,” growled Sir Brendol.

Armitage reacted immediately with a sour faced sniff, and turned away from the crew of young bohemians. His own crew skulked after him.

The place was still humming with intrigue and a pretty palpable sense of animosity. One could have set up some sort of machinery and harvested the energy coming off everyone. Probably keep the lights on in the neighbouring small towns.

Sir Brendol’s face continued to take on a crimson tone.

Poe Dameron gave Guy Thornalley a quick nudge on the arm. “Right. Now don’t make a big fuss or holler when I say what I’m about to say.” Guy grunted assent and Poe continued in a hushed tone. “You know who that is? The tall dark and mysterious?”

“Pretty obviously not,” muttered Thornalley.

“It’s Benjamin Organa-Solo. But don’t make a deal out of it,” he added hurriedly. “And whatever you do don’t call him by that name to his face.”

“You are joking. You are positively _jesting_.” Thornalley gave the fellow a quick squint. “Oh, good Lord, it is!”

Poe Dameron nodded. “Yup. Thought you might not recognise him.”

“Why didn’t he arrive with his mother?”

“Because he’s — well, he has a certain cavalier attitude to rules and niceties.”

“Could say the same about you, Poe,” Thornalley whispered, thinking of some extremely high jinks the two of them had got themselves into at Cambridge.

Benjamin-slash-Kylo and his friends didn’t stay long — whether they were satisfied to have thrown a big stone into the pond and seen the ripples, or whether they were disappointed to have missed the chance to make things difficult for Lady Organa-Solo in particular, one couldn’t tell.

“Not exactly what you’d call _bright_ young things, were they?” a voice could be heard saying.

“No. Quite the opposite. What a miserable bunch.”

After the interruption and an initial ripple of discussion and whispering about it, the party itself quietened down a bit. After a while, taxi cabs were called. Evening guests dispersed outwards, and weekend guests began to percolate upwards.

 

***

 

“Well, that was eventful,” Poe sighed, as his valet B.B took his jacket and hung it up.

“How so, sir?”

Poe slipped his cufflinks from his shirt sleeves. “Well, first of all Lady Organa was called away on some urgent business.” He set about removing his collar studs. “Then _someone_ showed up with a few friends in tow and proceeded to disrupt matters.”

“Ah, yes, sir,” B.B said. “I know about that, and I shall tell you how and why. A chauffeur popped in to the kitchen while we were playing cards and had a piece of toast and some of the luncheon left overs.”

“Oh. Well, I should have known nothing would slip past you.”

“Indeed, sir, indeed. And then, I was about to say — one of the gentlemen flung the door open, burst in, all wild-eyed and wild-haired, and without so much as a nod barked ‘Start the car!’. Well. One of the housemaids jumped a full foot out of her chair and as for me I had my cards down on the table and I was just standing up to give him a piece of my mind.”

“B.B!”

“Yes, yes, the old feudal spirit not quite in evidence, but I was rattled.” B.B folded Poe’s trousers over a hanger, neatly putting the pleats into line. “Then I took a second look at him, and blow me, the features fell into place in my mind —”

—“Yes!”

—“It was Ben Organa-Solo!” master and valet cried in unison.

“ _Quite_ unbelievable,” said Poe.

“Yes, sir. Quite. I had really been on the verge of saying something, and then realised that discretion really was the better part, when young Benjamin stormed off again.”

“Luckily for him. Wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of _you_ when you’re roused.”

“Perhaps not, sir,” B.B said. “Perhaps not. So, Tavson, that’s the name of master Benjamin’s chauffeur by the way, decent fellow, got up to leave, though Cook wouldn’t let him go without a little wax-paper parcel of leftovers.”

‘Very good of her. Thing is, and as _I_ was about to say, B.B — we nearly had a fight break out above stairs. Hux junior and his bunch had the most excessive reaction to Benjamin and his strange friends. Would have put the odds of fisticuffs at five to three on. Then old Brendol gave every indication of being about to blow _his_ top, but luckily he simmered down. Very peculiar situation.”

By this point, Poe was entirely in his pyjamas.

“I shall probably hear more about the upstairs goings on from the footmen,” said B.B. “And Wallis. And Ford, even.” Wallis was Thornalley’s valet, and Kay Ford was Armitage Hux’s man. Ford was a slightly older, more serious man, not given unwontedly to gossip; but what with his master having a large role to play in the evening’s kerfuffles he would quite possibly have something to pass on. “Good night, sir.”

“Good night, B.B.”

 

***

 

The next morning, after a breakfast a little more subdued than the previous day’s, Guy Thornalley was taking the scenic route back to his room, admiring the Birren Great Hall tulip beds, when his peaceful botanical appreciation was interrupted by what was obviously the most awful row going on. Muffled shouting, and one or two thuds and crashes.

Then, rounding the corner by the rose bushes, came Lady Maratelle, cigarette in hand.

“I do wish he wouldn’t,” she said.

“You do wish _who_ wouldn’t?”

“Armitage. Puts his father in such difficult positions.” She took a long draw on her cigarette. “Makes things frightfully awkward. Still. I shall be in Cannes in two weeks, far away from both of them.”

Old man Hux could just about be heard roaring something about a “disgrace” and a “bloody wastrel.”

Though Armitage Hux was, and remains, the most utter perisher, it would have taken a heart of icy stone not to feel a little sorry for him in that instant.

 

***

 

Back in the house, Thornalley encountered Poe Dameron on the landing, and they took the opportunity for a quick debrief.

“You really didn’t recognise Benny, did you?” Poe asked with a wry grin.

“Not until you pointed it out, no. But then I don’t know him particularly well.”

“True, true.”

Thornalley tongued a thoughtful tooth. “I remember a boy with rather prominent ears at Tantive Mansions over the long vac, and of course the mental images fell into place when you told me.”

“You see why he grew the hair,” Poe said.

“And with the ears shrouded, it tends to bring the nose into sharp relief.”

Poe laughed. “It does indeed,” he said.

“Talking of recognising people,” Guy said, “I think one of the others might have been Ernest Shaw. Younger brother of Frederick Shaw?”

It was Poe’s turn to ponder. “Now, Freddie’s brother did go to art school to be a little less conventional, didn’t he? Which one were you thinking was him, the shorter one?”

“That was the man,” Guy said.

“One of us ought to ask Freddie what his brother’s up to these days. Just out of interest.”

“Purely out of interest.”

Poe thought, again. “When Hux started getting on his high horse, Benny said they were all invited. So, truth or bluff?”

Guy rubbed finger and thumb over his chin. “I say… bluff.”

“They’d all have been piled into one car,” said Poe. “It’d have been quite a squeeze.”

“Just one car?”

“B.B seemed to say there was one chauffeur.”

Guy mused some more. “One up front, four on the back bench and one on a fold down seat, I suppose.”

“Peculiar plan, to bring all those odd chums of his. I suspect he wanted to cause offence to his mother, though that didn’t go by the book.”

“No. And I don’t see what Armitage’s problem was.”

“When does one ever?”

“Too true,” said Guy. He shook his head. “I have a feeling that this isn’t the last we’ve seen and heard of all this.”


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

The events of the weekend party at Great Birren Hall had, like a brick pitched into the middle of a duck pond, caused ripples. A brief tour around the usual habitats of those who had been present would prove itself illustrative.

 

***

Lady Carise was not about to hear it from her husband that she shouldn’t have invited the Organa boy. She told him as much over the marmalade, and he wisely demurred.

“I actually think it rather suspicious that Leia left so soon before they arrived. I wonder what was behind that ‘phone call.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. The woman’s a schemer, William. I’m aware it takes one to know one, and I absolutely know one. You can take that to the bank.”

 

***

 

Iffy Morton had just regaled a friend with the whole story of the interrupted cocktail party.

“With a name like that they ought to have been a jazz band,” she proclaimed.

“Who?” asked the friend, who had not, in the purest of honesty, really been listening all that hard.

“Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren. Along the lines of, you know, Count Basie and the Barons of Rhythm.”

“Oh, I see.”

“I rather call it false advertising,” Iffy said.

“Tell me more about that chap you met,” said the friend, seeking the meat in the stew.

 

***

On the way back, Guy Thornalley had commandeered the driving seat from his valet, and as they went along they discussed the weekend’s events. After they had compared notes on the cocktail party kerfuffle, Thornalley tapped Wallis for his impressions of the household.

“Judge the master and mistress as you may; it was a decent household, below stairs,” Wallis said.

“Is that so?”

“Mrs Jackson and her girls looked after us very well. Jolly atmosphere in the servants hall.”

“She is an _extremely_ good cook, I must say.”

“We were talking about households we’d known, you know everyone knows who’s been where and the like.”

“Comparing notes on the masters and mistresses?” Thornalley said with a wry smile. “Oh, don’t huff, Wallis, it’s to be expected and you know I clamour for every morsel of gossip you have.”

“Well, for example, Mrs Jackson was once head kitchen maid with the Hux family.”

“And she didn’t stay on there to become Cook? No wonder. Dreadful man, to be perfectly honest with you.”

“Not a popular employer. Quite a turnover of staff. Especially among the maids. One of Mrs J’s former colleagues left the service entirely and set up in business.”

That got the cogs a-whirring in Guy Thornalley’s head. Maids leaving employment. Maids having money to setup in business. Brendol Hux was one of those men who in his middle years had fancied himself a charmer, and Guy had heard rumours that he had not been entirely a stickler for the old marriage vows. He found himself wondering if Armitage might have half brothers or sisters running around somewhere. Now, if they had all turned out to be priggish little blighters like him, this would be good evidence for the nature/nurture debate, he mused.

 

***

 

Leia Organa-Solo was resting after a long morning of meetings. Her maid was arranging her hair. This little moment of tranquility was interrupted by the unmistakeable sound of a flustered Mr Treeby ascending the stairs.

“Oh dear,” they heard him mutter. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

“What is it, Treeby?”

The butler gave a perfunctory knock and then opened the door. “Princess Leia. At the party last night, after you left — your son was there.”

“Ben? He was there?”

“Yes, your highness, oh I am _so_ sorry. Perhaps I should not have telephoned but left it until the morning.”

“You did the right thing at the time,” Leia said. “So. Tell me what happened.”

 

***

 

Kylo Ren sat and brooded in his apartment.

It had been a waste of time and money to hire Tavson. The whole thing had been a waste. A failure.

Had someone sabotaged him? Or had his mother left the party for legitimate reasons?

He could find no answers. He wanted his manservant to offer to make another cup of tea, purely for the opportunity to refuse it. Or to throw the damn tea cup out of the window.

What a waste it had all been, and how dismal Kylo felt. He set his jaw at the half-opened curtains. None of this was doing any good. And he had the low, sickening, creeping feeling that someone very important was going to be very disappointed with him.

 

 

***

 

And there it is. By and large, the ripples were subsiding, and the general flow was back towards the normal swing of things. It was a bright and lightly breezy late morning, and Guy Thornalley was on his way to Jones and Ellison to pick up a pair of shoes. Wallis was already copiously booked up with errands and Thornalley thought he fancied the walk.

Not far from the shoemakers, he happened upon a squabble taking place on the street outside. He recognised the ginger hair and twiggish build of Armitage Hux immediately, of course; though he couldn’t, at first, place the gentleman with whom Armitage was vigorously discoursing. This second man was accusing Armitage of having done something to offend, which, though Thornalley knew nothing of the facts, certainly seemed plausible.

The two of them were looking each other up and down with tremendous contempt. In judgement of matters sartorial, Thornalley placed himself firmly on Armitage’s side, as indeed would the majority of the _populus_ — the other fellow was wearing not only a rather alarming hat but the most voluminous pair of bags Thornalley had ever seen in his life. Acres of navy blue flannel flapped about his knees and ankles, giving the impression of two jellabiya-clad Egyptian gentlemen attempting a dance. Thornalley finally dragged his eye up from unseemly trouser via sports jacket to face, and it was then he put two and two together: this was one of the rather odd crowd who had shown up at Lady Carise’s country weekend.

“So you deny it,” the flappy-trousered gent was saying to Armitage. “Very well. We’ll see what happens. Don’t expect Kylo to be forgiving.”

And with that threat, the chap, and his trousers, exited the scene.

“Hullo, Armitage,” Thornalley said. “So what was all that about?”

“No idea,” Hux snapped. Pleasant as ever.

Hux turned to enter the shop, as of course did Thornalley. There ensued a few seconds of awkwardness until Hux, though the more slightly built man, practically shoved Thornalley aside with a huff, and swung the door open, setting the bells a-clang. Once inside the shop the two gentlemen set about busily ignoring one another. There were two assistants at Jones and Ellison, and so Hux and Thornalley were served simultaneously. Thornalley indicated he was there to pick up a pair of tan brogues, and the assistant hurried off to the back room to fetch them, leaving Thornalley to idle by the counter, reading the advertisements for boot polish and whatnot. Up at the other end of the counter, the other assistant was serving young Hux. And something was not going well.

“That can’t be right,” Hux hissed. “Check again.”

“I’m awfully sorry, sir.”

Hux snatched a wallet out of an inner pocket, opened it, and slammed a number of notes down on the counter. “There. I’ll be back with the rest,” he said, obviously biting back some emotion. “My _BLOODY_ father,” he announced to the shop in general, sniffed, and stalked out, his head held artificially high.

Thornalley sucked in a sharp little breath and raised an eyebrow. It was fairly clear what had happened here. Old Brendol had cut off Armitage’s line of credit. He’d threatened to do it before, thus it wasn’t entirely a surprise, but still. Nobody hadn’t entirely thought he’d meant it.

 

***

 

The Astraeus Club where Dameron, Thornalley, Hux, Mitaka and the rest of them were members was a pleasant place, not London’s very finest but certainly among the rosette placings. It was there, in the smoking room of the Astraeus that Dopheld Mitaka and Guy Thornalley found themselves in each other’s company one afternoon. Mitaka was enthusing with typical moon-eyed rapture about a young girl he had recently met, and Thornalley was rather pleased for both him and her, as she certainly seemed to have found someone who could truly appreciate her freckled cheeks and sea blue eyes.

Armitage Hux entered, looking thoughtful.

“What ho, Doph. Thornalley.”

“What ho, Armitage. You look like the old brainmeats have been somewhat agitated,” Mitaka said.

“They have,” Hux said. “I’ve been thinking.”

Mitaka raised his eyebrows and gestured for Hux to continue.

“And I’ve made a decision,” Hux said. “I rather think I need to be away from here. Make changes.”

“Steady on,” Mitaka said. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

“Well,” Hux said, and grimaced lightly. “But I’m going to make something of myself. Stick it to Father. Be someone.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I shall get a job, of course.”

“Right.”

“I’m going to make use of my education.”

“Not a bad idea,” Thornalley said. Armitage was an extremely clever chap after all, at least in matters mathematical and scientific. “Who’s hiring?”

“Well, _you_ wouldn't know,” Armitage said, in a strong attempt to strangle Thornalley’s sympathy for him in its infancy.

Thing is, he absolutely needed a reliable source of income after his father had cut him off. Lady Maratelle’s side of the family, from what was known of them by rumour and known of her by experience, were highly unlikely to dip into the coffers on his behalf.

 

***

 

Thornalley later brought up the subject with his man Wallis.

“Some chaps at the club have been considering gainful employment,” he said. “Just considering, mind you.”

“I see, sir.”

“I don’t mean just writing a few articles for the magazines. I mean, most of us dabble in this and that, like I do.”

“Quite so.”

“But one or two fellows were considering something more along the lines of the standard nine-to-five.”

“I see. Has someone’s father cut him off without a shilling? In my experience that’s the sort of thing to bring this kind of talk on.”

“Ha! That may well be the sort of situation I’m talking about,” Thornalley said. “Not to tell any tales, though. Not at this immediate moment.”

“Of course not, Mr Thornalley. Of course not.”

 

***

 

Armitage Hux was not a man who went in for particularly braw or rude exertion, and when he had finished climbing the five flights of stairs to the very top of the building in Carlton House Terrace to which he’d been sent, he had to pause and mop his brow. It wouldn’t do to meet Mr Snoke in a state of perspiration.

He sat in a poky waiting room and waited, leafing through a copy of Punch and making a quiet, back-of-the-throat, almost dismissive sound whenever he came to a particularly amusing story or cartoon.

Finally a door opened, and a voice called out, “Enter!”

So he did.

Sitting in a small office, behind a large desk, in a large padded arm chair was an _extremely_ old man. This had to be the Mr Snoke to whom Hux had submitted his application, though he was far more ancient than Hux had expected from a powerful industrialist. Hux’s mind turned very briefly to wondering how the old man had made it up all those flights. Perhaps he crammed himself into the service lift.

“Armitage Hux,” Hux said, by way of introduction.

“I know who you are,” Mr Snoke said. He sat up and leant forward, offering a bony, claw-like hand to Hux, who stepped forward and shook it.

“Ah. Good. Well. Pleased to meet you.”

“Are you?” Mr Snoke said, and grinned. “Now, sit down, young Mr Hux, and tell me once again why you’d like to be a part of what we do at First Order Industries.”

The old man spoke in a sort of breathy hiss that verged on the theatrical, and which Armitage might normally have scoffed at. But at this particular juncture in these particular circumstances Armitage was all too pleased to have the opportunity to go through the little spiel he’d rehearsed about how excited he was about what First Order Industries were trying to achieve, and how these particular applications of electromagnetic radiation were precisely the sort of thing that his three years at Oxford had left him chomping at the bit to be allowed to pursue.

 

***

 

A couple of days later Dameron and Thornalley were at the Astraeus Club, digesting a light lunch and perusing the newspapers, when who should walk in but Kylo Ren, or Benjamin Organa-Solo, or whatever consensus had formed around his name tag.

“Dameron,” Kylo said, in a resonant and rather unnerving voice. 

Poe looked up from his newspaper. “Oh. It’s you. Have you spoken to your mother?”

And at this point, several gentlemen set aside their own business and starting quietly minding the business of Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren.

“No,” Kylo said, with an audible pout.

“Well, you should.”

Kylo sighed heftily. “I’d rather not go through all this again.”

“She worries about some of the company you keep,” Poe said, not a little frostily.

“What’s wrong with my friends?”

“Not _them_ ,” Dameron hissed.

This was where Kylo gave the conversation a solid swerve, having apparently seen something in the corner of the room which took his attention.

“So this is where he’s hiding,” Kylo said, striding over to the corner. “Hux. You little weasel.”

“Ren. How pleasant.”

“Spare me it,” growled Kylo, his voice suddenly of a timbre that set the hairs up on the back of the neck.

“What? You come over here and start haranguing me and I’m not even to give a polite how do you do?”

“Nothing about you is polite,” Kylo said. And there were those present who would have conceded that in this, he had a point.

“What,” Hux said through gritted teeth, “Do. You. Want.”

“What do I want? A lot of things, Hux. A lot of things.” He loomed over Hux’s chair for a moment, then continued. “You can stop insinuating yourself into places and situations you don’t belong, for a start.”

“I could say much the same about you, you know. Marching in here and —”

“I’m a member.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t.”

Thornalley gave some thought to whether he might be called upon to ring for the steward, and if the steward might be called upon to bring out the faithful old broom he kept behind the front desk for the purpose of separating scrapping members.

But it was not to be required. Kylo Ren performed what was becoming known as his particular speciality, in that he turned and departed, in what could be rightly called fair-to-moderate dudgeon.

If _Ren_ were ever stuck for a bob or two, Thornalley thought, he could hire himself out. Scenes Caused, Will Flounce In And Out In Under Ten Minutes, Two Guineas A Pop, Serious Enquiries Only.

 

***

 

Now, the next the Astraeus Club saw of Hux, he was looking extremely smug. And that can be taken to mean more than habitually so — he had the face of the cat that had got both the proverbial cream and a standing invitation back to the dairy.

He was once more surrounded by Opan, Paze, Mitaka, and another rat-faced chap.

“I take it you are aware of First Order Industries?”

“Yes, of course,” Opan said.

“As of the eighth of May,” Hux said, “I shall be working there. Doing great things.”

“Splendid news, isn’t it?” said Mitaka.

“Power, you see, gentlemen. Power. That’s the nub of it.”

Paze and the other rattish fellow both nodded vigorously.

“I think it’s about time to get away from all this. The club, everything.”

Paze’s face fell like a punctured soufflé.

“All of this rot,” Hux said, gesturing. “I’m stepping up in the world. You lot can keep Kylo Ren and his loathsome followers.”

“We’d rather not. Since when has he been a member of this place? I don’t recall voting on him.”

Thing is, Paze had only been a member himself for two years, so of course he wouldn’t remember. Benjamin Organa had been on the members’ roll for almost as long as Poe Dameron, but he had gone AWOL before Paze had even been proposed as a member.

“I’m going to need a new suit,” Hux said. “And a morocco-leather document case.” He glanced between Paze and Mitaka. “Would either of you help me out, until I get a new credit account set up with my tailor?”

 

***

 

Poe Dameron had just finished tea and toast furnished by B.B when the invitation arrived.

“Lady Organa-Solo is requesting the presence,” Poe said, reading it. “For lunch.”

“I shall lay out a suit, sir,” B.B said. “The grey light worsted, or something a little zingier?”

“Mildly zingy, B.B. But no further than mildly. Taupe chalk stripe? I’d be tempted by the tan and orange check, but… no. You must rein me in before people start mistaking me for an American.”

Poe got himself ready, in the taupe chalk stripe, and B.B went down to the garage to get the car ready and started for him. It was but a short drive to 4 Tantive Mansions, Highgate, but Poe Dameron did very much enjoy being seen in his Bentley. Being seen in the Bentley was on of his chief pleasures, and when he was heading further afield and had B.B as a passenger, it was also one of B.B’s chiefest pleasures.

Indeed, by the time he reached Highgate village, a satisfactory number of people, from postmen to delivery boys to nursemaids, had born witness to the passing by of the Bentley with a “Coo!” or a “What a motor!” and Poe was in good spirits.

He parked outside the Organa-Solo house, gave the Bentley, which he had christened Black One, a fond farewell pat, and rang the bell. Treeby came promptly to the door, took his hat, and showed him into the dining room.

Poe had barely had time to greet Leia when the doorbell rang again.

“That’ll be Thornalley,” she said. “Thought I’d best have both of you.”

And there he was, looking as thought he’d perhaps rushed a little to get there on time.

“Ah. Lady Organa-Solo,” he began.

She waved his greeting off with a hand. “Leia. Please. And how are you, Guy?”

He assured her of his rude health.

“Look, I’m going to cut the crap,” she said. “I’m worried about Ben.”

“Quite understood,” said Poe.

“I know what happened at Lady Carise’s party, and we’ll come to that in due course.”

“Right.”

“But the long story short is this. He’s around. I know he’s around, and he won’t talk to me, so would either of you talk to him?”

“I already tried,” Poe said. “Told him to talk to you. He gave me a firm brush-off.”

Guy nodded. “He did.”

“I don’t only mean for you to tell him to talk to me,” Leia said. “He already knows he should. I mean that since he’s back around and making appearances, if you’d just engage him in conversation.”

“Easier said than done,” Poe said, his eyebrows elevating.

“Honestly, all he seems to do is start cat fights with Armitage Hux,” Guy added.

“Well, perhaps you should stake the Hux boy out as bait,” Leia said. “Oh, I know I shouldn’t laugh. But if you don’t laugh, you cry.”

They tucked in to some smoked mackerel and watercress.

“He’s got in with a bad crowd,” Leia said, buttering a piece of bread. “And I don’t mean his oddball friends — half of them are just art students from what I can gather.”

“Right.”

“There’s some person who is influencing them,” Leia said. “It started when Ben left his uncle’s school.”

“So he was fine before then?”

Leia sighed. “When we took on Rey, it didn’t help.”

“No, don’t blame yourselves,” Poe said. “You mustn’t.”

Leia addressed Guy, to fill him in.

“Ben and Luke had a terrible falling out, and Ben upped and left. Leaving some damage behind him.”

“I see.”

“Sometimes I wish I’d sent him to a regular good school, but I don’t know. Marlborough was fine for you, Poe, but I don’t know about Ben. We thought Luke’s approach would be better.”

Now, to be honest, there were those of Guy Thornalley’s acquaintance who thought Temple Court to be a glorified nuthouse and Master Skywalker to be a tremendous eccentric. But these were opinions he was not about to voice in the parlour of Master Skywalker’s dear sister. So he kept his counsel and finished his smoked mackerel.

“When this all happened, Ben had already sat his university entrance exams, and so off he went. Then we discovered, later, that he wasn’t in attendance most of the time.”

“Oh. They didn’t chuck him out, did they?”

“They threatened rustication, but everything seemed to have been smoothed out. Engaging in extra curricular study was the story. Which is where this outside influence comes in. And then he disappeared. Simply disappeared. Not heard of or seen for seventeen months and six days.”

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Guy. “I didn’t know the background, the ins and outs. Well, I suppose you’re glad I didn’t, family matter and all that.”

“Ben and his uncle were always so close. Ben looked up to him. He looked up to his father, too, though in a completely different way. And now—” she sighed and shook her head —“he doesn’t speak to either one of them.”

“He doesn’t speak to his father either?”

“Not that I know of, and if he had been in touch somehow, Han would send a telegram straight away.”

A maid brought a glass of what looked like dandelion and burdock and set it by Lady Organa-Solo.

“Nerve tonic,” she said. “Kola nut. Can very highly recommend. Anyway,” she said, and her facial expression grew more serious, “have either of you ever seen Ben in the company of a much older gentleman? Bald-headed, with scars on his face, here and here,” she said, pointing to her cheeks. “Tall, but walks with a stoop.”

Neither Poe nor Guy had, though they promised to let Leia know if they ever did.

“I’m absolutely convinced this old fellow is extremely bad news. I think he’s been putting Ben up to acting in odd ways, and—”

“—like at the weekend party?”

“It’s possible. Or he might have simply wanted to show me up. Heavens, in that case it could have been Carise’s doing.”

Poe and Guy both met this with a hollow laugh.

“I need to talk to Luke about this, but he’s currently away on a research trip. Treeby suggested we should write to his secretary Mr Deayton, in his absence, and ask for his advice.”

“At least he might be able to tell you when Master Skywalker is expected back,” Poe said.

“Arthur Deayton is a walking catalogue and encyclopaedia, so he may well be able to put us in the picture a little more regarding Ben. Or that man.”Leia set her glass of tonic back on the table. “I’ll write to him. He’ll think Treeby is being too fussy, but he’ll help us any way he can.”

Poe nodded. “Good,” he said.

“Now, about the party,” Leia said. “I know Ben didn’t behave in the nicest way.”

“Neither did Armitage Hux or his friends,” Poe said.

“Now I’m assuming that Ben’s little entourage were his art friends,” Leia said. She sighed. “Such a shame I never saw them.”

“Well, there were four chaps and two young women,” Poe began. Leia nodded, and he continued, tallying the so-called Knights off on his fingers. “One taller lad in midnight blue with a big fuchsia silk scarf over his shoulders. A brown haired fellow with deep set eyes. The short one, who Guy pegged as Ernest Shaw.”

“Yes,” interrupted Guy with enthusiasm. “Freddie Shaw’s brother — you know Freddie?”

“Indeed,” Leia said, “I’ve dealt with Major and Mrs Shaw, at least.”

“And the blond chap,” Guy said. “And the short haired girl.”

“Yes, very short cropped hair and dark lipstick. The other girl had a very pointed chin. And short legs.”

“Ah,” Leia said. “Well, pointy chin and short legs sounds like Claudine Bartlett. Luke taught her. Shouldn’t be beyond the wit of man to find out what art school she or the Shaw boy are enrolled at, see if we can find out what they’re up to and if that damn man is hanging around them. I’ll get Treeby onto it. And Deayton.”

“So what are you going to do? Track them down and ask them where Ben is?”

“Well, what I’m not about to do is pound on the front door of every student digs in Bloomsbury like some sort of madwoman. There’ll be ways and means. If you happen across any of them, get them in conversation. See where it goes.”

“Actually,” Guy said, “I ran into one of them having a set-to with Armitage Hux a week ago.”

“Really? Where? Which one?”

“Brown hair and heavy brow. Outside Jones and Ellison’s shoemakers of all places.”

“Well, well.”

“We don’t move socially in the same places, so unless I’m going to change my habits drastically we are rather at the beck and call of random chance.”

“No need for that,” Leia said with a raised hand. “Random chance may be our best friend. Just keep me informed.”

Guy and Poe both knew to take that as an order.


	3. Chapter 3

Hux was up with the lark, breakfasted and dressed and out of the door by half past seven, then off to King’s Cross to catch the train out to Enfield. As he proceeded to the platform, he warmly congratulated himself on going in the opposite direction to the masses. They were sheep; followers. _He_ would be part of something bigger and greater than they would understand.

The train disgorged him at Enfield Chase station. He walked, in a pacy, upright, businesslike fashion, past the golf course and the new houses. In his pocket he had a tightly folded paper with written directions, given to him only after he’d accepted the job and assured Mr Snoke of his extreme discretion. He fetched it out now, cautious to not miss the proper road. After a right turn and about a hundred yards of buddleia and laburnum and privet, he came to a high stone wall topped with barbed wire, behind which crouched a large low red brick building with tall windows arranged in perfect and unimpeachable order. This, though perhaps gentle suburbia was unaware of the behemoth in its midst, was the factory and research premises of First Order Industries.

The entrance was part way along, with a guard’s hut and a barrier. Hux presented his credentials to the guard, who grunted, and retreated back inside his hut. Hux sighed. The guard picked up an intercom handset and spoke into it, before popping his head out again. “Go through the main doors,” he said, “and speak to Miss Unamo at reception.” He ushered Hux through.

Hux continued down a tarmac drive to the main entrance. On trying the door, he found it closed and locked, but then noticed a bell or buzzer mounted on the door frame. He pressed it, and pressed it again. With a click and a clunk, the door unlocked, and he pushed it open, entering into a rather starkly furnished reception area with a tiled floor and a large wide desk of modern design.

Behind the desk was a plain young woman with her hair in a severe bun, whose face gave the impression of a dog, who, having taken a mouthful of wasp, was preparing to chew it thoroughly and ask for another. Simple deduction indicated this to be Miss Unamo. Hux found her rather admirable in her stern professionalism. He showed her his accreditation and indicated that Mr Snoke was expecting him at precisely this hour.

“Of course. Mr Hux. If you’d like to follow me.”

She picked up a large manila folder from the desk, stood in one uncomplicated movement, and directed him to a wide staircase. “Your office is on the first floor. Next to laboratories C and D.” Her low heels clicked and clacked on the stairs, echoing in the big broad stairwell.

It was a medium sized office, with a modern desk furnished with a typewriter, filing cabinets and a set of bookshelves with a few engineering reference works on the middle shelf. A window behind the desk looked out on a corner of a flat roof, and behind that, parkland and a large Victorian house.

“Supremacy Hall,” Miss Unamo said, as he gazed out at it. “Private property.”

 _Well of course it’s private property_ , Hux thought. Did the girl imagine he would be striding up the lawn and demanding tea and sandwiches and a tour of the downstairs rooms?

“This is the intercom,” she said, pointing to a ten-button panel with telephone handset. “It is the practice here to always answer it promptly.”

“Of course,” Hux said.

“We don’t keep Mr Snoke waiting.”

“Of course not,” he said.

She opened the manila folder and placed it on the desk, revealing several forms. “Fill in these, and buzz me when you’ve finished. There’s a pen in the drawer if you don’t have one.”

“I have a pen,” he assured her. He was very proud of his pen, and had tucked it into its allotted compartment in his brand new morocco-leather document case that morning.

Miss Unamo nodded. “The team with whom you’ll be working are in Lab C this morning. I don’t believe you’ll need a lab coat, but knock first and don’t enter if the red light is on above the door.”

“Right. Should I have a lab coat of my own?”

“One will be issued.” She gave him a quick look. “I’ll show you in now if you like.”

He allowed her to show him to the door of Lab C. She rapped on it three times, and a loud hum of machinery eased to a quieter background sound.

“Enter!” called a voice.

Miss Unamo pushed the door open, and ushered Hux inside. “Mr Hux, as briefed,” she said. “Dr Datoo will introduce you to the others.” And she took her leave as Datoo, a greying middle-aged chap in a white lab coat over a tweed jacket, welcomed him in.

Hux looked around him. Banks of instrument consoles lined the walls. Arrays of dials, and switches, and levers, and buttons. It was marvellous. Hux, like a school boy in a sweet shop, knew himself to be in the right place. Great power was being harnessed here, and he was going to be a part of it. He was going, he thought, stopping just short of rubbing his hands in glee, to be doing some of the harnessing.

After a round of handshakes and a tour of the instrument panels, the technicians discussed a little of their current work. Dr Datoo suggested that Hux take with him a large book of documentation about the project and the equipment, and familiarise himself.

“Mr Snoke will want to speak to you at some point, about the project, and then I expect you’ll be joining us again this afternoon.”

Hux repaired back to his new office with the big documentation book under his arm and a sense of excitement in his heart. He first filled in Miss Unamo’s forms, and called her on the intercom to let her know they were finished. He then turned his attention to the big project documentation book.

After an hour of diligent reading and note taking, Miss Unamo came to collect the forms, and to Hux’s great delight, brought him a cup of tea, which she left with him. There had been some left in the pot, she said.

So, tea in hand, Hux assessed his morning so far. He had arrived at the big First Order factory and got himself let in, which he understood was an achievement in itself. He had been received with crisp efficiency, escorted to his office and introduced to a team of boffins with whom he’d be inventing things and heaving the course of civilisation forward. At this point everything was looking pretty rosy for him, and we must imagine him sitting back in his chair behind his desk and simply oozing self satisfaction.

But in every jar of ointment, no matter how smooth and sweetly scented, a fly must fall.

It went like this. Mr Snoke summoned Hux to his office, and Hux trotted along. He took a seat in the very capacious room with a large picture window giving right on to the grounds of Supremacy Hall, and generally acted on his very best behaviour. Snoke asked him what he thought of the project, and about his plans. Hux answered, and Snoke was nodding away, his eyes gleaming, when suddenly he declared that this was all very good but he needed to bring in his apprentice. Hux was puzzled by this, but the man started jabbing at a buzzer on his desk, and then, less than a minute later, in from another door came none other than… Kylo Ren.

The man himself. A superior look on his long face, dressed all in black, and standing there as large as life.

Hux was absolutely dumbfounded. Mouth hanging open, gasping like the goldfish, and he couldn’t really say a damned thing even if he wanted to, what with it being his first day on the job.

So he had to sit there, as his employer introduced his “loyal apprentice” Kylo Ren, and as Kylo Ren bowed his head to the boss as if he was some sort of servant or acolyte and the entire situation was, on top of being a firm slap in the face, really quite rum.

 

***

 

The next day, after a pep talk from his man Ford, he donned the gabardine and the bowler hat and went back to put in another day’s effort.

Not too far into the day’s proceedings, Kylo Ren invited himself in to Hux’s office, by the very simple means of knocking on the door and walking straight in.

Hux received him with a frown. “What do you want? And you could wait for an answer before you walk in.”

“Just wanted to see what you were doing,” Kylo said, looking Hux over with light to moderate contempt.

Hux turned back to his work, and continued pencilling annotations onto a typewritten sheet. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

“I gathered,” Kylo said.

“Did _you_ know _I_ was coming to work here?”

“No.”

“Well then. Neither of us in the know.” He looked up at Kylo. “Do you have a problem with it?”

“No,” Kylo said. “It was asked of me,” he added, as if that answered anything.

“What was asked of you? What are you talking about?”

Kylo stared at him like a dull but malevolent farm animal.

“What’s all this ‘apprentice’ rot, anyway?” Hux said. “Makes you sound like a tailor’s boy or a carpenter’s mate.”

“It’s none of your concern.”

“Well, I should say it rather is,” said Hux. “I’ve been appointed to this position, with my degree, and Mr Snoke was very pleased to have me.”

“I answer to Snoke. Not you.”

“I could say the same.”

Kylo wandered around the room, inspecting the bookshelves and cabinets with a studied boredom. Now, Armitage Hux was an easily infuriated man by all accounts, but this behaviour in particular was highly infuriating. He gritted his teeth and considered the reasons not to attempt violence upon Mr Snoke’s “apprentice.” For one, Mr Snoke would be seriously displeased and he would most likely lose his job. For another, Kylo was bigger than he was, particularly about the shoulders, and had the air of a person who would not hold back when given the opportunity of defenestrating, pounding, or otherwise marmolising another.

Hux decided on another verbal barb, in lieu. “Do your entourage appear later? Or is it just you?”

“It’s just me.” Kylo gently kicked the corner of one of Hux’s filing cabinets with the toe of one shoe until he came up with the following riposte. “I’m surprised Snoke chose to employ a dullard like you, but I know he’d never sink so far as your stupid friends. So I don’t have to ask. I _know_ you’re just you.”

“At least I’m not an indentured servant,” Hux said, acidly.

Shock rippled across Kylo’s face, and then shaped itself into a snarl. He turned and stomped from the room, slamming the door violently behind him.

A couple of minute later there was a polite knock on the door.

“What? Who is it?”

“It’s Mandetat, Mr Hux.”

“Oh, ah, come in.”

Mandetat stood in the doorway. “Just, would you mind awfully not banging the door so? It interferes with the instruments.”

“Yes. Of course. It wasn’t _me_ , anyway, you do realise that, don’t you?”

Mandetat sighed, shrugged, and retreated.

That sigh and shrug signified something. Either he didn’t believe Hux, or he _did_ believe him and had guessed exactly who was to blame for the crashing and banging. On balance, Hux decided it was the latter. He made another sigh of his own, pursed his lips, picked up his pencil, and recommenced his notations and calculations.

 

***

 

The days progressed. Armitage Hux kept showing up to work, and Kylo Ren kept annoying him.

Ren had opinions. He had opinions about the timing of Hux’s tests. He had opinions about the skill and competence of the technicians, which Hux took as not only unfair on the technicians but also as a personal insult to himself.

Some of these opinions, though objectionable to Hux, were couched in more or less sensible terms. Others were not.Ren would make gnomic statements about favourable energies, and Hux knew he wasn’t talking about the kind that was measured in ergs or joules or electron volts.

And inexplicably, Mr Snoke humoured him in this nonsense. He’d nod and lean forward and narrow his eyes thoughtfully.

Sometimes, Mr Snoke would dismiss Hux and let him get back to his work, while he and Kylo Ren confabulated with their absurd mumbo jumbo.

 

***

 

Hux wondered why he never saw Ren on the train out to Enfield. He was fairly sure that Ren lived somewhere in the capital, judging by his sudden appearance at the Astraeus.

It turned out that Ren arrived each day by motor car. As Hux found out one morning when a car swung past him at some velocity as he approached the factory, took the barrier in the manner of a limbo dancer as the guard raised it, and, kicking up gravel in its wake, made a skidding turn around to the rear of the building. He recognised the driver immediately.

Bloody show off.

Possibly worse than Poe Dameron.

 

***

 

In town, by contrast, things were quieter and more pleasant without the constant risk of some Hux or Ren related explosion.

At the Astraeus, Hux’s little crew seemed rather at a loss without him. Paze was seen attempting the crossword puzzle in the back of the Telegraph, and it was assumed Tritt Opan had returned to his previous pastime of poisoning pigeons in St James’ Park.

 

***

 

Every Thursday at ten o clock precisely, Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren reported to Mr Snoke’s office. Snoke would have them stand side by side in front of his desk, and give brief progress reports. He would ask them probing questions, and invite them to voice their opinions on each other’s work.

Though Hux would always have to repress a roll of the eyes when Kylo Ren gave his opinions on the work, it had seemed straightforward enough. Until the first time Hux, seemingly, got it wrong.

“Young Hux,” Snoke said, his voice suddenly laced with enough venom to fell an elephant.

“Mr Snoke. Sir.”

“You disappoint me.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?” Snoke stood up from his desk, surprisingly tall at his full height for such an aged man, and leaned forward. “I expect the utmost from you and your men. I want results. The ray will be operational by the end of the year.”

“Yes. Mr Snoke. Sir.”

“But what are you _doing_ about it?”

Ren stood smugly beside Hux the whole time, and Hux hated him.

Ren had gloated, after this, taking pleasure in adding insult to injury. Words were had, of a pungent bitterness, and eventually a door was slammed shut in Ren’s face. Behind the door, Hux had seethed and huffed until poor young Mandetat came, again, to remind him to not, if it were at all possible, to slam doors so.

 

***

 

“Not that tie, Ford.”

“Oh. My apologies, sir, I thought you liked it.”

Armitage sighed heavily. “The burgundy with beige fleck. Or is there something wrong with the burgundy with beige fleck?”

“Not at all, sir.”

Armitage sighed again, and lifted the back of his collar, crossly. He put the tie around his neck, crossly, and tied it in a half-windsor knot, crossly.

“If I might just be permitted to…”

Armitage sighed yet again as Ford neatened up the knot.

“Is everything alright, sir?”

Armitage pursed his lips and breathed out heavily through his nostrils, like a particularly peeved cat. “Depends what you call alright, of course, doesn’t it?” He put on his waistcoat and buttoned it up. “The job is going fine. I believe. The actual _job_ part of the job. Fine.” He exhaled heavily yet again. “But sometimes… Ford, can I speak to you frankly?”

“Of course, sir.”

“I have a, er, colleague, who is extremely difficult. An absolute pill of the bitterest kind. And there’s nothing I can do because he’s tight as a bloody drum with the boss. He lurks around my experiments, looms over the technicians, and can’t seem to stop interjecting his ridiculous bloody opinions all over the place, and that’s not even the worst of it.”

“Oh,” Ford said. “That sounds most vexing. If I might ask, sir, what is the worst of it?”

Armitage gave him a quick sharp glance, pale green eyes flashing under a furrowed brow.

“Never bloody mind. Damn it.”

 

***

 

At the club, though Hux of course knew nothing of it, the gentlemen were discussing his prospects.

“How long d’you think he’s going to last?” Poe asked.

“Who?”

“Armitage Hux. At this job of his.”

“Oh, I give him a week,” offered “Snap” Wexley.

“Maybe more than that,” “Dasher” Niven said. “A month.”

“Oh, I wasn’t being entirely serious,” Wexley said. “I’d say a month, too. He’ll stick it out just out of pure pigheadedness.”

“He needs the money.”

“Well, maybe two months or three.”

Tommy Starck, his feet up on a footstool, laughed.“Ha! I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already quit.”

“All this talk,” said Thornalley, “someone should start a book on it.”

“Where’s Brance? He’s our man.”

Another voice interrupted.

“Start a book on what?” It was Lank Paze, who had just walked in.

“Oh, nothing.”

“We were just wondering—” began Niven.

“Dasher! Shush!”

“— What the long and the short was on how long Hux might last,” Niven said, by now realising that he had made a mistake but gone too far to be able to reel it back in, “at his job.”

“Oh! Ha ha. Six weeks tops,” Paze said. “Mitaka thinks longer. You could make a bob or two out of Mitaka, on three months plus.”

A look of relief washed over the faces of Niven, Wexley, Starck and Thornalley.

“Shall we pencil you in for five weeks, then?” asked Niven.

 

 

***

 

The subject of this run of betting was up in one of the upper laboratories of the First Order Industries research facility, testing a new piece of equipment. He was just noting down some results when he glanced out of the window. On the flat roof, where he might have expected to see some pigeons, or perhaps a shallow puddle, was the unmistakable figure of Kylo Ren. He was luckily facing away from Hux, which enabled Hux to observe him without threat of being observed.

Ren was carrying out some sort of callisthenics, dressed in loose trousers and a cotton undershirt. He stretched and bent and leapt, like some escapee from the Moscow State Circus. Then he picked up a long stick that he must have brought with him, and embarked upon what was presumably a martial arts practice.

It was quite riveting. He’d not seen this side of Kylo before, though he was obviously at first glance a physically well-tuned chap.

His movements had a mixture of grace and brutality, but it was more than anything the concentration and focus with which he applied himself that impressed Hux.

At a distance, at arm’s length, when one didn’t have to interact with him personally, he was quite something to behold.

And on paper, really when you summed it all up, he was quite the Renaissance man. Art, science, spirituality, the martial arts, motor cars: all combined to give the impression of a fascinating person. Too bad he was such a fiend in human form.

 

***

 

The next time Hux and Ren were summoned to report to their boss, it was Kylo Ren who was in the cross-hairs of Snoke’s ire.

Hux found it hard to follow the exact argument of Snoke’s vituperations, but it seemed to boil down to Kylo Ren having spent too much time researching and reading about something Snoke thought wasn’t important, and not enough time on something he thought was important. Neither of them were Hux’s own project, and he would have therefore wagered neither worth the candle.

“You would do well,” growled Snoke, “to put aside your own personal interests and do as you are bid. Your training is not some hobby, or bagatelle.”

“Yes, Mr Snoke,” Kylo mumbled, chastened.

“I do not treat it as such, and neither will you.”

“No, Mr Snoke.”

“I expect better from both of you,” Snoke said. “Now go.”

Hux had no idea as to what _he_ was supposed to have done wrong.

 

***

 

As he did most evenings, Hux dined at home, waited on by Ford.

“I should probably go to the Astraeus one of these evenings, for a drink at least,” he said

“I can call a cab, sir.”

“No, don’t bother. Not that I don’t want to. I’m sure Paze and Mitaka will be pining for me,” Hux said, and gave a hollow laugh. “Or perhaps they’ve forgotten me altogether. How dare, of course, but people do.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“I simply don’t have the energy to drag myself out and be seen,” Hux said. “I do find that employment takes it out of one rather.”

For cleared his throat gently. “The work is tiring, I imagine, sir.”

“It is, it is. And the boss will keep on changing what he wants. And there’s the workshop to deal with. And on top of it all, there’s Ren.”

Kay Ford met this with what was on his part a dignified silence.

Horror flared hotly at the base of Hux’s neck. “Forget I said that, Ford.”

“Of course, sir.”

“I don’t know why he’s there. But at the same time he isn’t entirely useless. But supremely unhelpful. Draining more than anything. Positively draining.” Hux pushed his plate of unfinished dinner to one side. “Oh, take it away.”

“Yes, sir.”


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur Deayton worked his efficient way through a stack of correspondence. Third to last, he came to an envelope addressed in a rather familiar hand. His old friend Mr Treeby had written to him. What on earth, thought Deayton, was the silly old fool fussing about now.

The letter was from Leia, with a covering note, longer than the letter itself, from Treeby.

Once you got past the preamble and the fuss, Treeby’s note expressed concern about young Master Ben, trust in Leia’s ability to bear up in the circumstances but irritation that she should have to, and a short précis of some trouble that had happened between young Ben and another gentleman at a house party.

Now to Leia’s communique. Her initial request was fairly simple. What further or higher education had the former Temple Court pupil Claudine Bartlett gone on to?

Deayton trundled his office chair over to a bank of filing cabinets, and whistled merrily to himself as he pulled out the PUPILS A-De drawer. Bartlett. Claudine. Slade School of Art.

Leia also wanted Master Luke to be appraised of the situation, and would appreciate getting in touch with him earliest.

Deayton replied to Leia, giving her the needed information on young Miss Bartlett, and assuring her that he would be in contact with Master Luke a.s.a.p.

He pondered Treeby’s part of the letter again. The other young man involved in the contretemps with Master Ben had been one Armitage Hux. Deayton tutted. He knew that family name. Getting mixed up with the Huxes, or even with one individual Hux, would bring nothing but aggravation.

The same and worse, he realised, though he loved them all dearly, applied to the Skywalkers.

 

***

 

Dameron and Thornalley were in the sitting room of Thornalley’s flat, drinking coffee brewed in the Italian style by Wallis and discussing future social and recreational events, in particular a forthcoming motor car hill climb competition in Sussex. It went without saying that Poe Dameron would be competing in “Black One,” his Bentley Speed Six.

“Now you _are_ taking the Crossley to Lewes?”

“I’m taking it,” Thornalley said.

“Are you _entering_ it, I mean, you fathead.”

“Not one hundred percent decided.”

“Oh don’t be silly! Get your entry papers in — are they over there on the writing desk? Just fill it out and give it to Wallis to post.”

“Alright! Alright!”

“It’ll be fun. Tallie Lintra’s going in for it. I saw her father the other day. He’s had the Aston Martin tuned up and Tallie’s very much ready to go.”

“I _know_ it’ll be fun, Poe. Though there’s not a cat in hell’s chance of beating you or Tallie, I’m not deluded on that front. I also know that if I so much as _scratch_ the car, Wallis will be devastated. He adores that car.” 

“Oh, it’s the same with B.B and the Bentley.”

The telephone rang. Moments later, Wallis was making his presence known.

“Lady Organa-Solo for you, sir.”

Guy sprang up and took the call.

“Guy. How are you? Fine fettle etc? Good. Is Poe with you?”

“He is.”

“Splendid. If you chaps could meet me at let’s say the Copper Pot, in fifteen minutes. Or I could call on you.”

“If you’re in the area you may as well drop by. And isn’t the Copper Pot rather infra dig in any circumstance?”

“Not if I say it isn’t,” Leia said, and Guy Thornalley was forced to concede the point.

Fifteen minutes later, Lady Organa-Solo, neatly suited and topped with an elegant hat, was seated in Thornalley’s little sitting room, and asking for news of her son.

“Look, I’m afraid we don’t have much positive news for you.”

Leia frowned. “Tell me what you know.”

“First of all, Ben hasn’t been seen at the club lately. It’s like he surfaced, only to disappear again.”

This won a predictable sigh from Leia.

“We don’t see much of his odd friends either, come to that,” Poe said.

“On that note, Treeby and Deayton came through. Claudine Bartlett is at the Slade. Degree show coming up. 20th to 23rd May. Also on the list of graduating exhibitors, one Ernest Shaw.”

“I knew that!” Guy said. “At least, I spoke to Freddie Shaw re Ernest. But that’s all I have to go on.”

“I suppose we think it likely that Ben will go and give his friends moral support?” Poe said.

“That’s the idea.”

“Will you be going along?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I want to avoid confrontation at this stage. Don’t want to spook him, you know. And if that man is there, the one I told you about, then I fear I really will not be held accountable for the consequences.”

“You want me to go?” Guy offered. “Us to go? Freddie can get us in to the private viewing if I butter him up a bit.”

“I wasn’t thinking of sending _you_ necessarily,” Leia said.

“Now, I’m not a complete Philistine,” Guy said, “but I do take your point.”

“I have it covered. My best people will be on it.”

Poe pulled a face.

 

***

 

After Leia had descended and been given her coat by Wallis, Poe turned to Guy looking like he’d been slapped.

“ _Best people_? Did you hear that, Guy? Her _best people_? I thought _I_ was her best people. I thought _we_ were her best people.”

“Were you honestly going to go to an art show and mingle with Ben’s peculiar friends?”

“I would have done it in the service of the princess. And only because it’s her. Ben’s been an absolute ass, and I really wouldn’t be bending myself double to please him.”

Thornalley quivered with suppressed mirth.

“Ah, maybe I’m being unfair. It would be nice to have everything back as it should be. I’d like to be pals with Ben again. But he has to make things right with his family.”

 

***

 

It was mid morning at the First Order research facility. A buzz of activity and of electricity imbued the place.

Armitage Hux and his team had just finished a test. Dr Datoo had retired to his own office to start his technical write-up, and Hux had one small notebook, one large notebook and several heavily annotated typewritten pages strewn across his desk, ready to begin his own.

The intercom bell on Hux’s desk rang. The flashing light on the set denoted Third Floor Study Room. Hux had never been to the Third Floor Study Room, and wasn’t entirely sure what it was and what differentiated it from the Technical Library.

“Yes?”

“Hux.” It was Kylo Ren’s voice.

“What do you want? It had better be quick, as I’m busy.”

“Did you complete the test? With the new magnets? I want to discuss it with you.”

Hux sighed. “Can it be this afternoon? I’m just about to start my writeup, and I want to check my figures while it’s all fresh in the mind.”

“I prefer not to wait.”

“Well, we all _prefer_ not to wait, Ren, but I do have a job to do and your request doesn’t at the moment appear to me to be particularly urgent, so if you in fact could…”

“We’ll discuss it at lunch. You take lunch in the cafeteria?”

“Yes.”

“At one, then.” And Kylo Ren must have disconnected the call after that, as all Hux could hear was dead air.

 

***

 

Lunch was a watery Irish stew and boiled potatoes. Hux did not sit with Kylo Ren as he ate, but watched him out of the corner of his eye, and when he had finished, at five minutes before one, he went to sit opposite him.

“Well?”

Ren looked up as Hux swung his legs over the bench and under the table. His mouth was a long red pout.

“You like it because it reminds you of school dinners,” he said.

“What? What rot are you talking now? What on earth do school dinners have to do with anything? I thought you wanted to discuss the test.” He lowered his voice. “The higher magnet strength.”

“I do,” Ren said. “Firstly, I think you need to take into account the spiritual dimension.”

“Oh, not this again.”

“Not what again? I shouldn’t have to remind you that Mr Snoke sees this entire project with the eyes of the mind and the spirit.”

Hux glowered at him.

“Also, you’re getting limited returns.”

“What?”

“Testing that vacuum tube with those magnets. You’ll only see progress once you’re testing the larger tube.”

“Oh. Right.” The awful thing was that Kylo was almost certainly right, although that didn’t mean it had been a waste of time to perform the morning’s test procedure.

Kylo aimed a look of the vilest smugness towards Hux.

“And where did you come up with this titbit?” Hux asked, scrambling to deflect. “A revelation from the divine? Mystic incantations?”

“I did some rough calculations,” Ren said, nonchalantly.

Hux snorted.

“You assume my concerns are only for the spiritual. Interesting.”

“Yes, because that’s what you’re always whining on about, and what you were _specifically_ whining on about not two minutes ago.”

“In this instance,” Ren said, turning his head to start into the middle distance in the direction of the high canteen windows, putting his dramatic (and, Hux thought, ludicrous) profile into full effect, “I looked at the equations.”

“Well I’d dearly love to be testing the larger tube, but the glass department don’t have it ready yet.”

“Then you should lean on them.”

“There’s no point in rushing and hassling them, Ren. They know their jobs.”

“Then perhaps I should lean on them,” Kylo said, getting up from the canteen table and drawing himself up to his full height, and worse, his full width. “What do you say? Hux.” He loomed over Hux like a particularly annoying piece of scenery.

Hux pursed his lips and breathed out through his nose. He was about to speak, but Kylo Ren was already in the middle of a his dramatic exit. His party trick, thought Hux. His literal, verifiable, actual _party_ trick.

“For heaven’s _sakes_ ,” he muttered. 

 

***

 

Unfortunately, Kylo Ren was as good, or bad, as his word.

It was Dr Datoo who briefed Hux on the situation. He had just been down to Glass Equipment, where a situation was unfolding, and would Hux mind _terribly_ going and having a word with Kylo Ren. Hux was flattered that Datoo would think Ren was in any way pervious to Hux’s good advice and opinions, and he donned his lab coat and went to see what the matter was.

Ren was standing in the middle of the glass blowing workshop, haranguing and browbeating the two craftsmen.

“Why don’t you have the equipment ready?”

The senior glass man was taken aback. “We only received the work dockets yesterday, Mr Ren.”

Ren was not to be so easily put off by such things as facts and schedules. “The equipment. Is. Needed,” he menaced, and loomed over the poor man like a dark storm cloud.

The heat of the glass furnace was already making everyone in the room sweat, but a few more droplets were added to the brew by the presence of Ren.

“Ren!” Hux spoke sharply, from the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Ren strode over to him. He, too, was sweating. “Exactly what I told you I’d do. Perhaps you should listen.”

“I told _you_ that there was no point in rushing and hassling the men. The equipment will be ready. When it is ready, we will use it,” he said, speaking slowly as if he were talking to a recalcitrant child.

“Snoke needs progress. You aren’t making progress, because the equipment isn’t ready.”

“Carry on!” Hux shouted to the glass blowers, and he dragged Ren by the sleeve out of the room.

“Now listen to me, Ren, because this should not be beyond even you. By barging into the workshop and shouting at the men, you have distracted them from their work. You have made them stop what they are doing in order to listen to you. The work is precise, and interruptions are not welcome. They are counterproductive. Do you understand?”

Ren’s pout took on the dimensions of a sneer for a moment. “In that case, do you understand that by continuing to test with the low power tubes is a waste of time?”

“There is always something to learn,” said Hux, who knew perfectly well that the tests had in fact been a waste of time.

“And more ways of learning,” Ren said.

Hux rolled his eyes, though Ren, walking side by side with him as they returned to the main body of the factory, would not have seen it. “I’m not interested in your nonsense, as well you know,” he said. “What do you propose I do, instead of my work?”

“Develop your mind, Hux. I meditate. I find it extremely effective in developing the mind.”

Hux rolled his eyes to the point of causing himself actual physical pain.

 

***

 

At the beginning of the next working day, Hux was in conference with his scientists and engineers, when he noticed Kylo Ren, lurking in the back of the room. He was going to turn round and give him a portion of hot ready what-for, but then decided it was not worth letting Kylo Ren have the satisfaction. During the discussion, Hux couldn’t help glancing back a couple of times, out of curiosity. Kylo was staring at them, simply staring at them; fixing them with that intense gaze of his.

It was unnecessary and annoying.

 

***

 

Hux was updating his plans for the next two weeks’ test schedule, when he was disturbed by a faint shuffling noise coming from the corridor.

Kylo Ren was seemingly not to be shaken from his habit of lurking like a particularly annoying animal. He was loitering at Hux’s door, obviously on the point of making a formal interruption to Hux’s work.

“I have to finish these plans for Mr Snoke,” Hux said, letting it stand as a hello.

“Then finish them,” Ren said, strolling into the office.

Hux scowled. “At this rate, what with these interruptions, I shall be working through the weekend.”

“Unfortunate for you. I have better things to do.”

“Oh?”

“Some good friends of mine are graduating from art school, and exhibiting their work.”

“Oh.” Hux was at a loss as to why Ren was telling him this. “ _Those_ friends, I take it?” he asked, with the air of a man being asked to recollect the last five flies he had found in his soup.

“Yes. Those friends.”

“Have a wonderful time, won’t you.”

“I shall. I pity you, what with art and culture being a closed book to you.”

“That’s not quite true,” Hux said, frowning.

Kylo smiled at him, wicked and sharp.

The intercom’s bell interrupted their _tête à tête_. It was Snoke. Hux answered hurriedly, inwardly cursing him and wondering what now.

“Is Kylo Ren with you,” Snoke asked.

“He is.”

“Send him to me,” Snoke growled, with menace that would have chilled a Turkish bath. “Immediately.”

“Of course.” Hux held the receiver lightly, and spoke to Ren. “Snoke. Wants you in his office. Right now.”

A look of something peculiar flashed across Ren’s face. “I’m on my way,” he said, and hurried out.

Hux replaced the receiver and picked up his pencil to recommence his work.

 

***

 

The degree show was also on Lady Organa-Solo’s agenda. She dispatched Miss Sella, with the hope of either catching Ben and getting him into conversation, or at least of observing him.

Unfortunately, when Miss Sella got to the exhibition hall at the Slade, there was absolutely no sign of Ben Organa. It was quite likely that he would arrive late in proceedings, so she circulated about the room, and took in the works of art produced by the year’s graduating class. She admired oil paintings, bleak works in charcoal, sculptures large and small including Ernest Shaw’s Indecision and Claudine Bartlett’s Vanquished Clan Leader, and she scanned the attendees over and over looking for that surely unmistakeable profile. Perhaps he was lurking on the edge of the gallery. She cased its perimeter. He was not there.

But, in one corner, also casting his eye about, was Armitage Hux.

 

***

 

Kylo was nowhere.

Hux started to have second thoughts as to why he had come. He caught sight of three of Kylo’s friends, and ducked his head away, unsure yet as to whether he wanted to be seen or not seen. In order to seem like he fitted in, he looked at a row of oil paintings, of varying gloss and texture. He rather liked “Washerwoman In Repose,” and its depiction of stacks of neatly folded bedsheets and towels. The next painting was all colour and messy strokes and simply looked too busy.

He skulked along the sculptures. He knew he was running the risk of exposing himself to Kylo’s friends. But perhaps the best thing to do was to apply teeth to bullet. He would risk interaction.

And soon it came.

“Oh. It’s you.” It was a female voice, belonging to a girl with a heart shaped face and wavy brown hair. She was of course one of Kylo’s friends from the cocktail party at Birren Great Hall.

Hux froze, and frowned.

The girl looked Hux up and down. Her thin eyebrows twitched. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Do I need a reason? Interested in the art.”

“Oh, _really_.”

Hux looked away and scowled, possibly involuntarily.

“Do you like my piece?” the girl asked.

Hux set his eye over the sculpture once more. A humanoid figure was depicted, in a splayed prone position. A sword protruded from his chest, and one hand was raised, seemingly in a last desperate act of supplication.

“Vanquished Clan Leader? I do rather like it, as it happens. Those lines… Very dynamic. Who vanquished him?”

“Warriors,” the girl said. “Knights, perhaps.”

“Knights. So it’s part of your childish make-believe.”

“You don’t have to be so frightfully mean, you know. But you choose to anyway.” She tilted her head. “You know, I rather like that.”

Hux was pondering what to make of that when the girl seemed to spot someone behind him.

“Roddy!” she cried.

“Claudey.” It was the blond haired man from the party. He looked at Hux with tremendous disdain. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

“Yes, it _is_. A horrible little scrap of vermin, but he is being rather complimentary about my work, so I say we let him live.”

The chap, Roddy, looked Hux up and down again. “Your seconds aren’t with you this time. You’re on your own.”

“Well observed.”

“Ah, but you didn’t come for a fight, did you?”

“No.” And the more Hux weighed up the situation, the more he realised that these “Knights” weren’t their usual fully combative selves, either. Something of the previously observed vim and vigour of Roddy, who had faced up to Tritt Opan like a gladiator, was absent.

“Oh,” the girl said. “Oh, you came to see _him_ , didn’t you?”

“He’s not here,” Roddy said.

“I can see that.”

“You were looking to see if he’d turn up.”

Hux didn’t answer.

“Don’t you see enough of him at work?”

“Well. Work’s work, isn’t it?”

The two Knights exchanged a look.

“He was going to be here, though, as a friend?” Hux asked.

“Yes. But things don’t always work out, do they?”

Four more individuals converged on them, and Hux was surrounded.

“Oh, it’s you,” one of them said. “Didn’t bring your little bunch of tag-alongs this time.”

Hux sniffed. “Yes, thank you, we’ve been through that.”

“Not complaining. They were appallingly dull.”

“Do we do introductions,” asked another.

“Suppose we do,” said the blond chap. “Dreadfully conventional, but needs must. Right,” he said, indicating himself, but not offering the hand. Too conventional, Hux thought. “I’m Roderick Hempel. This, as you’re perfectly aware since you can read the label attached to her piece, is Claudine Bartlett. That is Clifford Mayhew. Has a studio in Chelsea. Ernest Shaw,” he said, pointing to the shorter of the men, “The poet, Miss Una Harding,” and he indicated the crop haired girl, who glared back at Hux, “and lastly Stephen Elliot.”

This was the man who had confronted him outside the shoe shop. “We’ve met,” Hux said.

“Yes. We have.”

The Knights gathered and muttered among themselves. Hux’s hackles rose a little from Being Talked About, but he kept a firm, straight posture.

“Listen. Things are winding down now. Maybe you’d best stay afterwards. We can chat.”

From the delivery, he wasn’t quite sure if it was an offer of hospitality or a threat against his person.

“Alright.”

And so Hux was escorted to a pokey little cafe across the road from the art school. The proprietor seemed to know all the Knights, and greeted them with a nod. They all sat at a large table near the back, with Hux in their midst, feeling rather like a captured enemy combatant.

Ernest Shaw got up and communicated the Knights usual drinks orders to the cafe proprietor. He turned around and scrutinised Hux. “Coffee?” he asked. “Tea?”

“Tea,” Hux said. “Do they have Lapsang Souchong here?”

“Ooh,” said Shaw. “Una, this awful man is trying to get in on your Lapsang.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” the poetess said. “He can have some.”She turned to Hux and gave him a disconcerting oxblood lipstick smile. “They keep it in special behind the counter, for me. But I’m being nice.”

“Thank you very much,” Hux said.

The drinks came. Hux

“So,” Hux said. “Ren. I assume that’s who we’re here to talk about.”

“Are we?” said Claudine. “ _Are_ we.”

“Go on, Armitage. You were going to say something.”

“Well. He was going to be here.”

The Knights looked sad.

“He mentioned it to me, actually,” continued Hux.

“Oh. Something must have come up.”

“The boss called him away, as we were speaking. So, of course, he must have had some work assigned to him.”

“It’s a shame.”

“You seem rather at a loss without him,” Hux said.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Ernest Shaw. “Not precisely. Just disappointed.”

Claudine Bartlett took a mournful look on her face. “I would have thought he’d have said something to us.”

“And with our benefactor not being here,” chipped in Clifford Mayhew.

Roderick Hempel interrupted him. “Cliff, are you sure we should be talking about this?”

“Artists have patrons,” Clifford said, with a shrug.

The Knights looked from one to the other and to Hux.

“I’m sorry to hear you haven’t had the support you wanted,” Hux said. The conversation was a little awkward, but he was picking his way through it. He made a note to find out more about the benefactor later.

“Oh. Well. Thank you,” said Claudine.

“Yes. Thank you,” said another Knight.

“In any case,” Claudine said, “friends stick together.” She looked at Hux. “Well, perhaps not in your case.”

“That was uncalled for,” sid Hux, primly.

“Sorry,” she said, and slouched further down in her seat.

“I suppose this work must have been frightfully important,” said Roderick.

“Yes. Probably. I suppose so.”

“Do you work closely with Kylo?”

“Not very. I find him terribly annoying, you know. Disruptive.”

“But you came here. To see him.”

“I did.”

All the Knights were silent for a moment, presumably thinking art and poetry sort of thoughts. Hux finished his tea.

“So,” he said, “on Monday I can find out what was keeping Kylo, and I could pass on a message.”

“Oh. Ah, no, it’s alright.”

“I wasn’t going to mention to him that I was here. It seems, oh, a bit silly now.”

“No,” said Clifford Mayhew. And then, “yes.”

“Don’t mention it to him,” Una Harding said. “We shall work out what to do. And you will leave it to us.”

The other Knights nodded their agreement.

“So I suppose I’m excused,” Hux said.

The Knights looked at him with the humour of a bunch of grave robbers, and Hux scraped back his chair, stood up and left.

 

***

 

Miss Sella hot footed it to 4 Tantive Mansions and rapped on the door.

Mr Treeby greeted her and welcomed her in. “Miss Sella! Do come in, and have a seat in the drawing room. The Princess advised me to possibly expect you. I shall be just a moment.”

She was soon ushered through to the study, where Leia sat reading a pile of papers.

“Do you have news?”

“I do.”

“Good. Now tell me all about it.”

“Another pot of tea, Ma’am?” offered Treeby.

Leia indicated this would be most welcome, and Treeby bustled off in the direction of the kitchen.

Miss Sella sat down. “Well. Bad news first. I saw nothing of Benjamin at all.”

Leia sighed. “I suppose it was too much to hope for.”

“But I did see his friends. Very much as described by Mr Dameron and Mr Thornalley. I had the briefest of conversation with two of them, though they were rather wary of me.”

“Did they know who you were?”

“Not sure.”

Leia tapped her fingernails on the table. “Hmm.”

Mr Treeby came in with a steaming pot of tea, and Leia poured. She gave Treeby a nod, and he exited, leaving the door very slightly ajar behind him.

“The interesting thing is who _else_ I saw there.”

Leia leaned forward.

“Armitage Hux.”

“Oh, now that _is_ interesting. I wonder. Had he wanted to have another set-to with Ben?”

“Seems likely,” Korrie said. “But he was hiding himself away — I’m positive he didn’t see me. What I’m saying is, he didn’t seem the most combative.”

“And he was alone?”

“Yes. None of those other gentlemen with him.”

“Well, that’s a thickener to the plot. Ben’s friends, and his little enemy, all expected him to be there, and he let them down.”

 

***

 

It was a fine Sunday, and Armitage Hux took a somewhat lonely stroll around Mayfair. Almost everyone was away for the weekend, as far as he could tell.

Before he was about to give the afternoon up as a bad show, he saw the friendly face of Dopheld Mitaka and hailed him.

“What ho, Dopheld.”

“What ho, Armitage. Bit deserted, what. Just come back from my sister’s — everyone is well, by the way.”

“Oh. Nice.”

“Shall we go and have a sit down and something restorative? You must tell me how things are at your factory. It must be frightfully interesting.”

“Ha. I would say it verges on the interestingly frightful.”

“That bad?” sympathised Mitaka, and by that point they had found themselves on the threshold of the Astraeus club. “Come on, we’ll be able to get the best spot on the back terrace.”

Hux let Mitaka guide him past the games room, from which the clack of billiard balls could be heard, to the main lounge where French windows were open onto a little verandah.

Mitaka paid a short visit to the bar steward and returned with two large and cold gin fizzes. “Told him not to stint on the Tanqueray,” he said.

The refreshing and invigorating liquid buoyed Hux’s mood.

“I suppose I shouldn’t really complain,” he said. “But I do find it rather rich to have to tolerate people, and then, when I feel I’m possibly on the verge of being respected, hung out to dry like an old lemon.”

“That doesn’t sound right at all,” commiserated Mitaka.

Hux looked around. They were the only members out on the verandah. “I might as well tell you about it,” he said, knowing a sympathetic ear when he saw one.

And, starting more or less at the beginning, he did.

 

***

 

Kylo Ren was at home, in his third floor flat. He was sulking, and the particular focus of his sulk was the fact he had missed the degree show exhibition of two of his best friends. He felt rotten about it, and he felt rotten and guilty for feeling rotten and guilty about it. He knew he had to follow Snoke’s guidance, or be found wanting.

Stephens was his habitual lugubrious self on the matter, not one to leap into the formation and expression of ideas and plans. He had expressed the opinion that things were likely to blow over, given time.

Kylo’s worries had then moved back to the ever-popular topic of his family.

“Stephens.”

“Sir?”

“You know that I am not at home to Lady Organa-Solo under any circumstances whatsoever?”

“Of course, sir.”

“I’m concerned,” Kylo said, moving to the window and peering cautiously out, hiding himself behind the thick drapes as much as possible. “I’m concerned that she will at some point succeed in tracking me down. She knows I don’t want to see her. But that won’t keep her away.”

“We are not at home to Lady Organa-Solo, and if asked, I have never heard of you.”

“That’s right. Thank you, Stephens.”

“Will that be all, sir?”

“Do we have red vermouth in this flat?”

“We do, sir.”

“Make me a drink. A Negroni.”

The bitter-sweet libation was duly produced, and Kylo nestled it in his hand, gazing into its ruby red depths. He sipped. The Knights were supposed to have come up for a party after the exhibition run. But that hadn’t been possible. It was a disappointment that couldn’t be denied. Kylo reflected on it. It would make him stronger.

He picked up a slim volume. a collection of poems by Una Harding going by the title _Betrayals_. They’d had a little party when it was published. Snoke had provided some rather good wine.

It wouldn’t be outside the boundaries of Snoke’s guidance for him to read the thing. Surely.

Stephens had already dealt with most of the day’s correspondence, leaving only a small envelope marked “Personal.” Kylo turned it over in his hands. He recognised the handwriting.

With a grunting sigh and a small letter knife, he opened it. It was the briefest of notes.

 

_Kylo,_

_Missed you frightfully but never mind. No Mr Snoke, either, but as long as my stipend isn’t touched I don’t particularly care. Claudine’s Clan Leader got a lot of attention & Ernest might have an “in” with a gallery owner. The real news is this: you won’t guess who was hanging around making an arse of himself? Armitage Hux. And he wasn’t here for Claudine or Ernest if you catch my meaning. Odd fellow, which I’m sure you know._

_Oh, look, do let’s all go and have some fun again soon._

_Yr faithful knight,_

_Clifford Mayhew / Arno Ren_

 

Kylo folded the note up again and put it back in the envelope.

He would wait for further instruction and training from Snoke.

***

 

Monday happened to be Kay Ford’s day off. He had left a pork pie and various sundries for his master’s supper in the pantry under a cloth, and the master had got himself ready for work and been out of the house at a quarter to eight as usual. After a spell of reading and a nice stroll in the park, with sandwiches eaten on a sunny bench, he made for the pub.

The King of Prussia was an establishment frequented by members of the upper _upper_ working class, including servants on their days off. And it was here that Ford went to drink with his friend Arnold Wallis, gentleman’s gentleman to one Guy Thornalley.

Wallis was already established in the snug, with two fresh and foaming pints of Young’s bitter in front of him.

“Ah, good man,” Ford said, taking his seat. He raised his glass to his lips, then paused. “Should we have a toast?”

“To what?”

“Hum. Not sure.”

“To leisure,” Wallis said, raising his own tankard.

“To leisure!” said Ford. “Whenever we can get it.” And both men drank a good deep swallow.

“Splendid stuff,” Wallis said. “And how have you been keeping?

“Not too shabby.

“Your Mr Hux is in employment, now?”

“Yes,”

“Good to hear. How’s he finding things?”

“Now, Arnold, you know it’s not my place to talk.”

“Ah, come now, Kay.”

“The work is taxing, but he’s a very bright and well organised chap. Boss is a bit of a terror, but young Hux is used to that.”

Wallis nodded. He knew exactly what Ford meant without Ford having to say another word.

“Colleagues are decent sorts. Well. By and large.”

“Oh?”

Ford looked a little uncomfortable. “Let’s say the young master has had the bad luck of falling in with someone he doesn’t get on with at all.”

“Oh dear.”

“Not really at liberty to say much more at the moment.”

Wallis nodded. He knew when not to push it with Kay Ford.

“Will your Mr Hux be missing the Test match?”

“Unfortunately. I shall be there, though.”

“I’ll look out for you. Accompanying Mr Thornalley, of course.”

“What do you make of this bunch of Australians?”

“Their top order are a bit of a handful.”

And so they discussed the relative form of the two sides, the promising young fast bowler making his England debut, and all the sorts of things that add extra savour to an Englishman’s beer.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the first day of the Lord's Test, and Guy Thornalley found himself sat next to Dopheld Mitaka.

“Poor old Hux will be missing out on this,” Mitaka said.

“Yes,” said Thornalley, who would not have chosen to refer to Armitage Hux in quite such sympathetic terms. “How’s this job of his treating him?”

“It’s not bad. Demanding stuff, apparently. And all quite hush-hush, so I don’t know any of the details. Not that I’d understand them if I did.”

“Ah, don’t sell yourself short, Dopheld.”

“Oh, I’m not. But Armitage is frightfully brainy with matters electrical and the like — I saw a page or two of his notes at college once and couldn’t have begun to make head or tail of it.”

“He is a clever chap,” Thornalley said.

The bowler ran in from the Pavilion end and unleashed a fast delivery that had the batsman playing a defensive shot.

“I say,” said Thornalley, “that’s lively bowling.”

“Isn’t it just.”

“Good to hear Armitage is making out well with the inventions and advancements. Decent crowd to work with, is it?”

Mitaka laughed hollowly. “There’s the thing.”

“Oh?”

“All the technicians and engineers are first class, according to Armitage, and he really couldn’t be happier in their company. But the boss is an absolute tyrant. So I’m told. And…”

The bowler took his run up, and was swatted away into the covers this time.

Thornalley raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“Ah, no, this is the thing of it.”

“What thing of what?”

They glanced at proceedings for just long enough to see the batsman play a forward defensive shot.

“I shouldn’t really tell you this. Guy, you must absolutely promise not to blab this about.”

“I absolutely promise,” Thornalley said.

“There’s someone else working there. Who Armitage doesn’t get on with.”

“Uh-huh,” said Thornalley. Mitaka gave him a sort of encouraging look, as might be aimed at a dog you wanted to jump over a gate. He felt almost on the verge of the required leap.

The Australian batsmen took two runs before the ball was collected at the boundary.

“Well?” Mitaka said. “Come on, Guy, thinking cap!”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Ren.”

“Ren. All six foot three of the beggar.”

Guy Thornalley’s promise to not blab this about would make the mayfly look positively long-lived. The beans would be spilled vigorously and soon, at least to Poe Dameron and Lady Organa-Solo.

“Gosh. Bet that’s going down like a rotten oyster.”

“Quite. Armie’s putting up with it. More or less.”

The batsmen managed one run this time, the ball going over the head of the man at point.

“Can’t imagine Ren holding down a job of any sort, to be quite honest,” Thornalley said.

“No,” Mitaka agreed. “Though, apparently, he shows up and does whatever he does.”

“What does he do?”

Mitaka shrugged. “I don’t know. Even Armitage isn’t too sure. It’s related to the research stuff Armie’s doing — at least, Kylo Ren keeps barging in to give his opinion.”

“Sounds hellish.”

“There’s a mystical side to it. He meditates. Apparently.”

“Really? Not the exact soul of peace and tranquility, I'd have thought.”

“No, quite,” Mitaka said. “He still has outbursts, on occasion.”

“Frightful man.”

The bowler let fly with one of his faster deliveries, which caught the batsman completely off guard. He managed only to scoop the ball up into the hands of second slip. Applause greeted the catch.

“Smashing bowling,” said Mitaka. “He could be the next big thing, you know.”

When the umpires called lunch, Guy Thornalley excused himself with the small white lie of requiring the ablutions facilities. He positively dashed to the pavilion, and dodging between MCC members resplendent in their egg-and-bacon, located the telephone.

“Lady Organa-Solo. Leia.”

“What is it?”

“I have news about your son,” Thornalley said, still breathless. “He’s working. First Order Industries.”

“Where?”

“First Order Industries! The factory, out in the sticks, not sure exactly where.”

“We can look up the address, Guy, what else?” She seemed to sense there was more to tell.

“Alright. It’s not just the where it’s the who — he’s working with Armitage Hux!”

“Good heavens. How long has this been going on?”

“Young Hux has been there a few weeks now. Some of the fellows at the Astraeus have already lost money on it.”

“Lost money? Never mind, tell me later.”

“They still don’t get on, but they work together. Though apparently Armitage isn’t one hundred percent sure what Ben’s job role is.”

“Where the devil did you find this out?”

“I heard this from Dopheld Mitaka, not half an hour ago. Hence it’s all from Armitage’s side, about what a pain in the rear end Ben is.”

“He can be,” Leia said.

“Though Mitaka referred to him as Kylo Ren throughout.”

“Right. I am going to find out everything I can about that place. I don’t doubt it has to do with that damned man. Did the Mitaka boy say anything about the chief up there. The boss. How does Armitage find him?”

“A devil, a positive tartar.”

“Right. I shall be in touch. You may get a call from Treeby.”

“I shall look forward to it.”

“I’m restraining every impulse to hail the nearest cab and dash straight to that bloody factory.” Leia sighed. “I don’t want to spook Ben and have him run for the hills again. And to be quite honest I don’t know what that man is capable of.”

“Do take care, Leia.”

“And you, Guy. Speak soonest.”

And she put down the receiver with a click and a buzz.

Thornalley put another coin into the honesty box, and dialled Poe Dameron’s residence. He told B.B to expect him that evening, and B.B promised that Mr Dameron would be at home.

 

***

 

B.B let Thornalley in, and led him to the living room, where Poe Dameron was reclining picturesquely on a sofa, a small glass of something golden at his elbow.

“Missed you at the cricket today.”

“Good day’s play?”

“Middling. Australians are 192-4. Heard one hell of a piece of news, while I was there, though.”

B.B had already stopped off at the decanters as Thornalley settled himself into the sofa facing Poe.

“Madeira, sir?”

“That would be most welcome, B.B,” said Guy, and he was duly provided with the said nectar.

“I shall leave you gentlemen to your business,” said B.B. “I hear the ironing calling me. Not quite the sweet silver song of the siren, but no less irresistible.”

“Of course.”

“And if you want anything —”

— “We shall holler,” said Poe.

B.B bustled off.

“Anyway. Your news.”

“It’s a corker. A huge lead for Leia’s search for Ben.”

“Oh?”

“he’s working at the same place as Armitage Hux.”

“No!”

“I heard it from Dopheld Mitaka. Obviously I telephoned Lady Organa-Solo straight away.”

“Well, well.”

“Will you be around tomorrow?”

“Oh yes. Unavoidable situation with Black One this a.m. But all sorted.”

“Good good.” 

Poe mused. “I wonder how this affects the betting.”

“On the Test?”

“On Hux. He’s still working there, I take it?”

“Yes, according to Dopheld.”

“Hmm. If he’s stuck it this long, he must be made of tougher stuff than he looks.”

“Yes. But he stuck it with that father of his.”

“True. We might not have been thinking of that. I might be waving goodbye to some money over this. Still. Easy come, easy go, eh?”

 

***

Life at the First Order Industries factory and research premises went on as usual, in that once again, Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux were at odds.

Ren burst into Hux’s office without announcing himself, his face set in an expression of anger. “What did you do,” he asked, clenching his fists, “to my car?”

“I didn’t do a damn thing to your car.”

“You are a liar, Hux. A liar and a bad one at that.”

“I have not been near your car.”

“There is a scratch. All the way down one side. And I know you did it,” Kylo said, pointing an accusing finger at Hux.

“Now, will you listen to me. I have _not been near_ your motor car. I never even _see_ your motor car. I arrive by train, as you well know, and walk from the station. Every single day. I do not have time to go via the rear of the building, and if I did, I would have no interest in touching your damned motor car.”

“I’ll show you the scratch.”

“I don’t care to see it. Listen, Ren, I’m terribly sorry to hear that someone scratched the paintwork on your car. I’m sure the whole factory is.Get it repainted. It isn’t my problem.”

“It will be,” Ren said.

“Where have you got this idea that I’ve scratched your car?”

“Witnesses.”

“Balderdash. You’re making it up.”

“I am not.” Kylo began to look a little uncertain.

“Bring me those witnesses, and we’ll see what they have to say.”

Kylo chewed on his lip, lost in thought for a moment. “Alright then. I shall.”

“Go and meditate or something. So long as you leave me alone.”

 

***

 

The weekend of the Test match had been a good one for Guy Thornalley. He had spent the day with his father and uncle on the Saturday, and everyone had been in the finest of cheer. He had had the opportunity to introduce them to Miss Morton, and she had been very well received.

The courtship continued to go well, and as the next week rolled on and around, a dinner date was suggested. Iffy brought up the topic, being very much a modern girl, of the sort with both hands on the tiller of her own destiny.

“Listen,” she’d said. “I know a rather super little restaurant. If you were wanting to take a girl out for dinner.”

“I just might be,” Guy had said, seizing the opportunity. “Give a chap the need-to-know.”

Iffy had waxed most enthusiastic about “Chez Sylvie,” to be found in the environs of Regent’s Park. Guy had taken the details and duly made a reservation.

Guy had Wallis drive himself and Iffy to the restaurant, which he considered a treat for all concerned. Wallis liked to drive the car, and Thornalley felt like a proper gent sat in the back.

Chez Sylvie was as charming and delightful as Iffy Morton had promised. It advertised French style home cooking, and how it delivered.

Guy tucked into a piece of fish, perfectly cooked with the most unctuous buttery sauce, and thought himself in Elysium.

It might be a little early to be thinking about possibly regularising his relationship with Miss Morton. Though people, meaning his mother and father and society in general, did tend to expect an engagement at some stage. If he were to know where he stood, then he could take things at a reasonable pace over the summer.

Iffy was a splendid girl. Quick with her wits, and with low tolerance for pomposity, which meshed in perfectly with Guy’s outlook on life. Guy’s father had been very taken with her, and had dropped some none-too-subtle hints about a future engagement. Absolutely anyone would be beyond lucky to have the chance to team up with her. And she had a great talent for locating good food and drink.

There were only two small problems. The first was that the awful Lady Carise Sindian would take some credit for the match, having been the one to introduce them. The second was Poe Dameron. Not that Poe Dameron was ever a problem. Far from it, Guy thought, feeling a pang of guilt lance through his stomach and interfere with the beurre blanc sauce. But things between them were good and well established. It was a lovely boat and he didn’t want to rock it.

“Listen, Iffy.” Guy began. “Obviously, there is the possibility, and I’m not saying anything definite right now, of you and I coming to a sort of arrangement.”

She smiled wryly at him. “Oh, do go on.”

“We get on fantastically, don’t we?”

“Absolute house on fire,” she said.

“My old Dad liked you.”

“And I liked him! I say, Guy, are you going to grow your sideburns out like that when you get old? I thought they were absolutely splendid.”

“It’s an option, Iffy. If such facial furniture comes back into fashion, then I am ready,” he said. He was charmed at her gentle teasing — Thornalley senior took great pride in his Victorian-issue whiskers and would be pleased as punch to know they were the topic of approving conversation.

Iffy laughed and smiled.

“Well. Look. It’s early days, but, you know, I thought it might be an idea to be thinking about. For the future.”

Iffy sipped at her Sancerre.

Doubt, the soft shoed scoundrel, crept up on Guy. “I mean, of course, there doesn’t _have_ to be an arrangement if you don’t want.”

“Oh, of course not, but I’d be amenable if you were.”

“You would? Super!”

“And Mr Dameron is, you know, amenable, too?”

Guy blushed and looked down at a suddenly fascinating stitch on his shirt cuff. “I do believe he is.”

“One never wants to be the cuckoo in the nest, you know.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be that, Iffy.”

“Oh, good,” she said brightly.

“I think it could be good for everybody,” Guy said. “We should probably all get together and talk about it.”

“Let’s do that. We’ll have a game of golf or something.”

Guy settled.

“Meanwhile and here and now,” Iffy said, “we simply must have the tarte tatin.”

“The who?”

“Upside down apple tart. It is to _die_ for.”

 

***

 

Back at the factory, Hux was in Laboratory B, having just taken receipt of the new vacuum tubes from the glass equipment workshop. He could not admire them for long, as he was suddenly summoned to Snoke’s office. Heduly reported, and found the old man speaking on the telephone. Snoke glanced up and signalled for Hux to remain, which he did, waiting for the conversation to wrap up.

“In answer to your question,” Snoke said, clutching the receiver in one bony talon, “I keep such a rabid cur in this place because he is useful to me, in his way. Continue as you have been, my faithful apprentice.” He replaced the receiver with a clank.

Snoke had been speaking to Kylo Ren. And had answered a question from Ren that, it didn’t take much of the old grey matter to conclude, had been “why do you keep such a rabid cur in this place?” _Rabid_? _Cur_? A plain outrage.

He was about to say something, but he saw the look old Snoke was giving him, and very promptly decided not to.

“Report, Mr Hux. Tell me what you’ve been achieving.”

Hux swallowed his outrage and his bitterness, which went down in a rather large lump, and related the progress he had been making with his own team of boffins. Snoke listened intently and actually seemed quite pleased, which was at least a little salve on the wound. And, when Hux came to think about it, Snoke had justified Hux’s presence to Ren, even if he had been slightly damning with faint praise. But Hux would overlook that.

 

***

 

At Poe Dameron’s flat, Poe and Guy Thornalley were having a chat about Thornalley’s courtship of Iffy Morton, and her courtship of him, when the doorbell rang.

“I shall get that,” B.B called. And minutes later, he bustled in with a telegram.

Poe opened the telegram and read. “It’s from Finn! And Rey! And Han of course.”

“Oh, super,” Guy said. “How are they all? And where are they all?”

Poe scrutinised the telegram again. “Sent from Zanzibar.” He read the telegram out.

RUM DOINGS AT MINE IN MOZAMBIQUE STOP SUSPECT HAND OF MR S STOP V CONCERNED STOP MORE IN LETTER TO COME STOP OUR BEST TO YOU AND GUY STOP

“Well, my very best to Finn and Rey, too.” Guy scratched his top lip. “Rum doings, eh? Could be a multitude of sins.”

“Indeed. Finn ‘very concerned’, though.”

“Mr S… You don’t think…”

“Mr S being Mr Snoke? First Order Industries? I don’t know that they have anything to do with the colonies. But that’s not to say they don’t.”

“No.”

“Could be a big coincidence and nothing more. But I don’t tend to believe in coincidences,” Poe said, his face set.

“There’s a letter to follow. Probably take a week to get here.”

“I should think so.”

“Meanwhile,” Guy said, scratching his top lip again, “we already have impetus to find out more about the place, what with Ben being mixed up in it.”

“Leia will certainly have had a telegram. But Finn and Rey sent this to me. So they obviously want us to do something about it.”

“But what?”

“Can’t you get Hux in conversation?”

Guy shook his head. “Look, I’m not exactly pally with him, you know. No more than you are. I can’t easily tap him up for information.”

“I just think if there’s anything we can find out.”

“If there is I’ll be the first to step forward,” Guy said. “I’m not quite as keen as young Rey and Finn seem to be on playing detective, mind you. They’re still young enough to be getting into scrapes.”

“Guy Thornalley! I never thought you would turn into such a Mary Ann. I needn’t remind you that Han is nearly sixty and still as madcap as any of us.”

***

 

At this moment, to be perfectly honest, Armitage Hux’s feelings towards his employer were somewhat bitter and verging on the resentful.

Mr Snoke had not responded to his requests for a meeting to discuss a potential breakthrough with the oscillator. He had told Hux that this project was of the utmost importance and first priority, but now when Hux had something urgent to discuss, the boss was nowhere to be found. In fact, it was starting to seem that Mr Snoke barely did anything towards the project, instead always having some other interest to prioritise.

When appraised of Hux’s frustration, Dr Datoo had merely shrugged. “That’s Snoke,” he’d said. “He’ll be fussing with something else. Probably one of the mines. But don’t you worry, Mr Hux. He’ll turn up at the last minute and want to know everything.”

“But I don’t want that,” Hux had said. “I want to brief him and have time to make a decision. I don’t want a mad rush.”

“Oh, it’ll be a flap, but that’s how it is,” Dr Datoo had said. Hux had had the distinct feeling that he was being patronised. And he thought back to the interview he’d had for this job. It had taken place in a little room on the top floor of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy.

Then it had come up that Snoke wasn’t to be disturbed because he was involved in delicate business negotiations relating to his interests in the Niger Delta. This had peeved Hux yet further.

The thing that had tipped him right over the guard rail had come a little later. A man had come to the factory, a stout Russian-sounding chap, and Miss Unamo had shown him straight up to Snoke’s office, passing Hux on the stairs.

“Who was the Russkie bod?” Hux asked her, the next he saw her.

“Not Russkie,” she said. “Not exactly.”

Hux was by now extremely annoyed, and jealous of all these other interests that seemingly superseded his project. He took the opportunity of Snoke having retreated to Supremacy Hall for a private luncheon, snuck into Snoke’s office and took glances at letters and notes and documents that he really shouldn’t have. There was a lot of correspondence with a contact in the Soviet Ukraine, which explained Miss Unamo’s “not exactly Russian” comment. And there were a good deal of papers relating to mineral interests, chiefly among them mines in Mozambique and Rhodesia.

Hux quickly flicked through a few pages, and his lip twitched. He checked his watch. Ten to two. If Snoke was not having a post-prandial nap, he would be back soon. Hux leapt to the window. A patio door was open, attended by one of Snoke’s servants. Snoke stepped out. Hux sprang into action, though not without rolling his eyes at Snoke’s garish smoking jacket, and replaced all the papers into their proper drawers.

He would have to find a time when Snoke was guaranteed to be out of the office, sneak in, and take a proper look.

 

***

 

Mr Snoke was having a meeting with an important individual, Miss Unamo had said, and would not be available until later in the day.

Hux had put on his best attempt at a disappointed face and stated that this was simply too frustrating but What Could Be Done. He then made a very good show of hiding his glee when Miss Unamo informed him that this meeting would be taking place over in Supremacy Hall, and not in the factory building.

He would have the opportunity to get into Snoke’s office and investigate his suspicions.

When the time came, he sidled along and, heart making its way to his mouth, put a hand on the doorknob.The office was unlocked. He turned the handle quietly, noiselessly, like a cat stalking a mouse, like the sneak thief he was.

He checked for booby traps, lengths of cotton sewing thread stretched across the doorway and all the sort of things he’d read about in espionage novels as a young boy. Feeling relieved and a little foolish, he closed the door behind him and made for the filing cabinets.

First, he looked through financial records for the mines. There was a lot of money coming from them. And the company was putting money into them — into a company that looked as though it was also owned by Snoke. So far so inconclusive. But weren’t the financial papers supposed to be in the book-keeping clerk’s office, anyway?

Next, he looked through another file of correspondence, with letters about some dealings in West Africa, and more letters from the Soviet chap. Snoke did seem to have his fingers in a great number of pies. One letter referenced what Hux recognised as his own project, the energy ray. There was talk of “quelling a rebellion,” which sounded a little serious and political.

His investigation was suddenly cut short. There was a noise. Noises were not good news in such a finely-balanced circumstance as Armitage Hux had placed himself. Footsteps were very much to be placed in the category of bad news.

Hux looked around with increasingly frantic concern, eyes widening and darting and doing all sorts of activity until they fell with relief upon the large coat cupboard. He would hide in there. He would hide in there until Snoke had gone. Discretion. Valour. Better part of.

He leapt for the cupboard door, ready to take his refuge. He was more than half way into the cupboard before his brain, not generally held to be short on the intellectual horsepower, had fully computed that there was already someone in the cupboard.

Kylo Ren stared at him with both shock and horror. Ren put a finger to his lips in an urgent, hunted, “shh”, and yanked Hux into the cupboard. Hux pulled the door shut behind him, just in time.

The thing about a coat cupboard is that it is not usually furnished with much in the way of electric lighting. With the door closed, one’s coats, hats, and odds and ends are happy to bask in near-complete darkness. Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren, however, were not quite so contented.

Ren was very large and very close. It did not help, to be stuck in a confined space with someone who was both very large and very close.

Hux could hear Ren breathing. He could hear himself breathing, and the pounding of his heartbeat in his throat. He could hear drawers opening. A drip of ice sweat trailed down behind his shirt collar as he assessed how sure he was that he had put back the file where he had found it.

There were more noises, then he heard Snoke’s voice. He was on the telephone or the intercom.

“I have what I was looking for. I shall be back in the Hall in ten minutes.”

Snoke left the office.

Hux and Ren breathed.

“We should go. I think it’s safe.”

“We should _talk about this_ , I think you mean,” hissed Hux.

“But not here.”

“Alright, not here.”

They left the room, and Hux shut the door behind them.

“Come to the third floor study room in half an hour,” Ren said, and then he was away down the corridor with that curious slightly bowlegged gait of his that Hux could not, though this was really not the time to dwell on such matters, avoid finding fascinating.

He busied himself for half an hour, with half a mind still on those letters and their potential implications. If only he dared go back and look again.

And then it was up to the third floor study room, which seemed to be Kylo Ren’s lair and hiding place. The man was there, sitting on the arm of an armchair and brooding, all nose and frown and pout..

Hux considered an introduction and preamble to be unnecessary and went straight in with the meat of the discussion. “What the _hell_ were you doing?”

Kylo Ren looked up at Hux with mighty affront.“What the hell were _you_ doing, I should say.”

They stared at each other.

“I know why _I_ was in the cupboard,” Hux said. “I shall assume you were there for the same reason.”

“Seems reasonable.”

“You weren’t looking for a lost winter coat. Or playing hide and seek.”

“Or Sardines,” Ren said.

Hux blushed a little.

“I saw you through the keyhole,” Ren said. “You were looking in Snoke’s desk.”

Hux reddened further.

“When did you go into the cupboard?”

“Same as you. When I heard someone coming. Which turned out to be you and not Snoke”

“Right. You were doing exactly the same as me.”

“Yes.” Kylo Ren looked away, then back to Hux. “What were you looking for?”

“Financial irregularities. His other interests.”

“Oh, _his_ other interests now, is it, not just _my_ other interests?”

“Yes! I don’t think he’s committed to the project. I think he may be cheating us.”

Kylo looked away again, and pouted. “I suspect him of cheating me. My training. It isn’t going as planned.”

“Oh. Well. That’s not something I can do an awful lot about.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

Hux was starting to feel somewhat at a loss, even though he had in fact just gained information of great importance.

“While I have you here, there’s something I’d like to know. Why did you call me a rabid cur?”

“I didn’t,” Kylo said, obviously affronted.

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying. Why are you always accusing me of things I haven’t done?”

“Me? Accuse you? That’s fairly bloody rich.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind.”

Hux made a huffing sigh. “I don’t trust him. And you don’t trust him. But I don’t trust you either. And don’t forget that.”

Kylo gave him a blank look. “I’m not asking you to.”

“Whatever you’re doing, I don’t think I should be sidelined.”

Another blank look was his reward.

 

***

 

Things had not gone according to plan. He had found something, but nothing remotely conclusive. And he’d been stuck in a cupboard with Ren. It was a disaster and an outrage and more than that.

The conversation ought to have gone a lot better. He didn’t know what Kylo had hoped to find in Snoke’s papers, or if he had found it.

He still wasn’t sure how to handle Ren.

He remembered though, that at the Astraeus Club, Poe and Kylo had spoken as though they were quite familiar with each other. There had been something about Ren’s mother, and his friends.

It would necessitate the swallowing of a hefty chunk of pride, but it was not unthinkable to ask Poe Dameron for information. Perhaps even advice.

Hux mused. If Snoke _were_ up to something fraudulent, it would be better to have him neatly out of the way so that Hux could get on with supervising the research. And in order to achieve that, it would be better for get Kylo on side. Easier things had been done. But he had to gird the old loins up, seize his metaphorical sword and shield, and give it a try. If it turned out not to be possible, better to know for sure that it wasn’t possible.

First stop, Poe Dameron.

Then he would tackle Kylo Ren.

 

***

 

Hux telephoned Dameron and suggested a little meet up. Dameron accepted, without much fuss.

“Listen. You know that Kylo Ren chap, don’t you, Dameron.”

“For my copious venal sins, yes.”

“I’m not sure if you are aware, but he and I both work at First Order Industries.”

“Oh, him too?” Dameron said. He and Thornalley both worked hard to present facial expressions typical of a person for whom this was brand new news.

“Yes. And of course you’re aware that we got off on the wrong foot, at the Sindians’ party.”

“Let me just rack my brains and see if I recall,” Thornalley said, sarcastically.

Hux scowled. “No need to be like that,’ he said. “Relations between us are currently —” and he waggled a hand in the air to indicated something that was either ‘so-so’ or ‘unstable’ —“but I do think it would be better if he were more on side.”

“Uh huh.”

“If Ren and I could smooth things over, and be able to present a united front— there are some goings on that aren’t quite right. Or not what I would expect, at least.”

“Oh?”

“I’d rather not go into detail right now.”

Poe nodded. “So — you’d like to extend an olive branch to Ren, get on good terms with him.”

“Yes.”

“So that, between you, you can sort out whatever situation seems to be bothering you.”

“Yes.”

“Not entirely sure what I can do, Hux. Or, really, why I should lift a finger on your behalf. You have been the most perfect ass, you know.”

Hux huffed, but did not react as strongly as might have been expected. He simply looked pinched, like someone who had a stone in his shoe and little opportunity of taking it off and ridding himself of the irritation.

“However. I am a very nice person, as is Guy, and I will, in this instance, assist you with this piece of workplace bother. I expect you to be suitably grateful.”

“Yes. I’ll be grateful. Good lord, what is this, Sunday School?”

As well as their mission from Leia, Poe and Guy both had personal motives to help Armitage Hux with his professional travails. Poe had three guineas riding on Hux’s job lasting seven weeks, and Guy had his money on nine weeks. Hux quitting before then was to be prevented if at all possible.

“Look, Hux,” said Guy, “why don’t you just try being pleasant to Ren? Vinegar may be your stock-in trade, but one does catch more flies with honey.”

Hux sighed.

“And this work business, is it a colleague of the two of yours? Or the boss?”

Hux twitched, and Dameron knew he had made a hit.

“What’s this boss like, anyway,” Thornalley said. “This Mr Snoke.”

“I don’t know a great deal about him. He’s rather secretive. Terribly old.”

Poe and Guy both felt a jolt of something. The old man. Very likely that Mr Snoke was the old man Leia had spoken about.

“A lot of business interests.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“The typical old industrialist, really,” Hux said. He sighed again. “I do feel he’s not quite doing things fairly. I’m supposed to be managing a research team, and I’m either getting pushed around or he takes his absence and leaves us all hanging. I’d rather not have it out with him on my own, and have Ren take advantage of my exposed position. If it’s to be two against one, I’d rather not be the one.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Guy said.

Hux still seemed a little dissatisfied.

“Look, Dameron. Thornalley. It’s not just that.”

“Oh?”

“This could be delicate.”

Poe formed his features into some kind of expression likely to put Hux at his ease.

“No, it’s no good. I’m not about to — oh what’s the point.” Hux looked away towards the window, seemingly distrait again.

Deciding that his repertoire of reassuring facial expressions currently fell short of requirements, Poe, too, looked away.

“I’d like to find good ground. Not just because of the — I mean potentially a _certain sort_ of good ground. You two fellows, you have a good situation between you. A good arrangement.”

Poe and Guy glanced at each other. They both knew what Hux was getting at.

“A good situation,” Poe echoed.

“It’s about — look it’s still about Kylo Ren. I sometimes have the impression that he might be amenable. Though of course we hate each other.”

Guy opened his mouth and was deciding on a response, when Armitage cut him off.

“Oh it’s no good at all, I can’t talk to you about this.”

Poe raised a hand. “Let’s not be so hasty,” he said.

“Alright. Alright then.”

“So you’d like to get along with him better,” Guy said. “For more than one reason. What’s stopping you at present?”

“I don’t know. It’s either him or it’s me. Or it’s something else.”

There was a softness about Armitage’s face with which neither Poe nor Guy were familiar. This was a delicate business.

“Look,” Guy said. “I never knew him that well, but I’m sure he never used to be quite this difficult. Isn't that right, Poe?”

“I’d say so. He was a pain, for sure. But not anti-social.”

“I wouldn’t want to take things too far, and put him off. I do still need him on side for the business at work. But I feel like there’s an opportunity. To, you know.”

Poe nodded slowly.

“It isn’t easy for chaps,” Armitage said. “Chaps who… like…”

“Chaps like us,” Poe said.

“Quite.” Armitage paused and thought, and there was that softness in him again; and then fast on its heels that old sourness, coming in to cover it up. “You have Miss Morton as well, of course,” he said, shooting an accusatory glance at Guy.

“Yes. And I should say, Hux, everyone involved knows about everything. Knows where they stand. Dameron, Miss Morton and me. So don’t think you can go blackmailing anyone.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you.”

Hux sniffed. “Simply wondering when it might be _my_ turn to have anyone at all.”

“Well,” said Guy, “if you’re going to have chats with Ren about your boss, you are going to have to pave the way. And whatever else may be the harvest of that,” he said, opening his hands in an elaborate shrug, “is for the fates to decide.”

 

***

 

Hux went to talk to Kylo again, but something seemed to have changed. His demeanour and attitude were distinctly chilly. It did not bring out the best in Hux.

“If anything were to happen, I shouldn’t let you have everything to yourself.”

“So you think I should let _you_ have everything to _yourself_?”

Ren folded his arms and looked away.

Hux thinned his lips. “You don’t have the people. Not here. It wouldn’t work.”

Ren stared at him, but said nothing.

“Just don’t sideline me.”

“And you do have the ‘people’ do you?”

“Snoke always said you talked a big game but when it come down to it you don’t have what it takes.”

“Look at those little sycophants of yours,” Ren said. “They were pretty quick to sideline you.”

“That’s quite untrue.”

Ren laughed, coldly.

Hux set his jaw at him. “I do have people.”

“Like who?”

Hux’s face twitched. He wasn’t going to go into a list of names.

“Like who? Like the mother who abandoned you?”

Hux actually took a step backwards in shock. His heart, pierced and frozen by this hideous barb, took a moment to regroup itself, and started beating again with quite some urgency.

His lips were white. He could feel they were white, and he could hear and feel the blood rushing up to his ears.

He could think of nothing to say. Genuinely dumbstruck, he floundered, and twitched, and finally with the utmost effort forced out, “How could you _say_ that?”

It sounded not at all like he’d intended it to sound — instead of a biting, challenging how-dare-you, it was plaintive. Which was worse than anything.

He ran before he could embarrass himself further.


	6. Chapter 6

Leia was in her study, writing up several pages of advice to young Ransolm Casterfo, who was about to embark on his political career by being selected prospective parliamentary candidate for Birren and the Wold. It was the least she could do, she thought, to make sure that for every ounce of nonsense he heard from the likes of Lady Carise Sindian, he could have a pound of sense from her. The Archduchess Breha had not raised her to sit silently or be miserly with her counsel.

Treeby knocked and came in with a letter.

“This just came second post, ma’am. I fancy I recognise Captain Solo’s handwriting.”

Leia hurriedly opened the envelope. Treeby hovered for a moment, but was dismissed.

 

_Princess,_

_Let me tell you what we’ve seen._

_We called in at a port in Mozambique for some business for the Portuguese (nothing to worry about!), and that’s when we started hearing some pretty rum stories. Chewie and me got chatting to a fellow who had something to say about the way duties and taxes are done around here. Anyway, this chap’s line is that there’s some real greasy business going on back in the interior. It looks like plain old bribery and corruption, with a side order of money laundering. I’m told that the Lansdale mine, in the formerly unknown regions, isn’t producing anything like the amount of ore it’s cracked up to be. The owner uses it to book all his ill gotten gains through as profits. Supposedly. Make of that what you will. Something stinks and that’s for sure. Rey thinks so too, and is pretty adamant something should be done about it. And you know that girl has a damn good sense of what’s what, for her age._

_A name that came up in connection with this mine and another in the interior was First Order Industries. Between you and Arthur Deayton you’ll get them pinned down, I’m sure._

_We also heard some talk about kidnappings, which made us all take notice. There’s supposed to be a gang stealing away young people from the villages and towns. Finn went deadly quiet, and told us later that this was exactly what had been going on in his neck of the woods when he was a small boy. He’s going to add a bit onto this letter and lay it out as he sees it. I understand his father is the one to give the account of how the kidnappers were foiled and what he believes is their modus operandi — Treeby has his address in order to send a telegram, is that right?_

_We’ll be across the Indian Ocean soon. All are looking forward to spending some time with Abdul Akbar and experiencing his hospitality. Luke should arrive there same day as us, last I heard. If we were coming straight home in the Falcon we’d be there before this letter, but I shall have to entrust it to the regular flying boat. A couple of pound notes might make the captain open up the taps a bit. Chewie would rather spend it on supplies, for which read crates of Guinness._

_Rey and Finn loved Zanzibar, but like I say, next stop Karachi._

_If you hear anything at all from Ben, anything, please send a telegram care of Akbar and I’ll get it in a couple of days. In any case we’ll all be home in a couple of weeks. Hang tight, Princess, and remember I love you._

_Anyhow, enough of the mushy stuff. Finn’s going to write his bit on the other side of the paper._

_Your one and only Captain Solo._

(The letter continued in neater handwriting)

_Dear Lady Organa-Solo,_

_We heard rumours about kidnappings, which chilled my blood to the bone, given that I was very nearly the victim of a kidnapping attempt when I was four years old. If my father had not been wise to the danger, I shudder to think what might have happened to me. We thought that the local people here in Mozambique might be more likely to open up to another black man, so I listened and asked a few questions. Between English, my bad Swahili, my five words of Portuguese and their non-existent Yoruba we got somewhere. It is exactly like what we experienced when I was a child. Small night raids, and people talk of men in white pith helmets, and sometimes a very old white man with a wizened face like a skeleton. People believe this man to be a witch. It was always my father’s opinion that they were simply criminals wishing to give the impression of witchcraft in order to frighten people and let them have their way. Captain Solo is of the same opinion._

_If you send a wire to my father, he will be only too happy to confirm._

_My sincerest and best wishes,_

_Samuel Oluwakemi Olofinjana_

_P.S. Tell Treeby that my move is QB-K5 – I forgot to include it on last telegram._

 

This was proof. The shadowy svengali and the industrialist were one and the same. Ben’s “sponsor”, the mysterious benefactor of the Knights of Ren art group; was W.B Snoke of First Order Industries. The rotten dealings and chicanery in Africa, and the whiff of witchcraft; all could be traced back to the same man.

This meant he could be got to. Leia cursed, in language that might have been considered unprincessly. She had not realised that the way to reach Ben had been there all along. If she could have Mr Snoke nailed for his crimes in the world of business and finance, then Ben and his poor, dear, silly friends would be able to see that they had been duped.

She could weep. But there was much to be getting on with.

Leia pulled out her address book, and found the name of a contact at New Scotland Yard. She telephoned, but was put through to another policeman who was sufficiently ignorant of her reputation that he initially tried to fob her off.

“There are multiple corroborating accounts,” she said. “I don’t think you are sure it’s nothing. And I don’t think Inspector Draven would be sure it was nothing, if you were to get him to call me.”

Next, she had Treeby dash out to the post office to send a telegram to Finn’s father, one Reverend Daniel Olofinjana, and another to Arthur Deayton. Luke would be back home when Han collected him from his research sojourn in India, which would be in the next week or so, but in his stead Deayton would once again be greatly helpful.

The real key to this business was going to be at the premises of First Order Industries. There would be records and documentation to be seized. Any route to Snoke’s underbelly would likely pass through his business and its employees.

And of course, there were two employees in particular that she was interested in. The first, her wayward son. And the second, that weaselly little character Armitage Hux. He was a rum young chap, Leia thought. Often far too keen to parrot the hair-raising views of his dreadful father. But clearly disliking the man intensely. He could be turned. What was it that Thornalley had said about Armitage’s option of his boss — he certainly hadn’t reported of warm and loyal devotion.

Leia gazed from the window into the middle distance, recalling all the good advice her mother, the late Archduchess Breha, had given her.

She was going to have to ask Dameron and Thornalley for another little batch of favours.

 

***

 

“I hope you boys don’t mind running errands.”

“For you, Princess,” Poe Dameron said, “we certainly don’t.”

“Your telegram from Finn,” Leia said. “We have follow up.”

“Ah.”

“Long story short, the boss of First Order Industries, a Mr W.B. Snoke, is suspected of a positive raft of crimes. You name it, he’s up to it.”

“Ha!” said Poe and Guy as one.

“Scotland Yard are going to want to take a good look at things.”

“I bet they are.”

“Do you think young Armitage knows more than he’s letting on?”

“Funnily enough, Hux spoke to us just the other day. Mainly asking for some basic training on how to be a decent person with a civil tongue in his head. Wanted to get on better terms with Ben, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh.”

“And, you see, it’s all connected with this business.”

“How so?”

“Hux was dropping hints, about something being wrong at work. He obviously knows something’s up. And he wanted to try to get Ben on side so they could deal with it as one.”

“Very interesting,” said Leia.

“I’d say he wants rid of old Snoke.”

“This will all have to be coordinated somehow,” Poe said. “I bet the police would quite like to have a man on the inside.”

“You and I think along the same lines,” Leia said. “If he wants rid of the boss, he’ll be happy to help us out.”

“Would it be alright to share some of this evidence with him? Obviously keeping names and fine details out of it.”

Leia wrinkled her brow. “Do you think you can trust him? He’s not going to go back to Snoke and blow the whole thing.”

“Oh no. He genuinely hates the old devil, I’m absolutely sure.”

“Right. Dangle it in front of him like a carrot, and get him to talk to Inspector Draven. And he can come to me if he wants any more encouragement.”

 

***

 

The atmosphere in Kylo Ren’s flat was more than usually solemn.

Kylo had returned from the factory a little earlier than his usual hour. His manservant Stephens had been doing some light polishing and dusting, and had only had time to give his master the briefest greeting before said master retreated to his little cubby-hole study and closed the door behind him.

Stephens knew that the master was not to be disturbed, except in case of fire, earthquake, or the angels starting up on trumpets.

After a period of silent brooding, Kylo emerged, like a thief from a crypt, and intimated to Stephens that he might have made an error during a contretemps with Armitage Hux. He might have gone too far. He might have said something he shouldn’t.

“What was it, if I might be so bold, that you said, sir?”

“It was something about his mother.”

Stephens winced, noticeably. “His _mother_ , sir?”

Kylo nodded.

“I would not have thought that wise in the _best_ of circumstances.”

“Well. No. Clearly.”

“Sir?”

“What.”

“I perhaps shouldn’t say, sir. But these were _not_ the best of circumstances. Categorically and emphatically not, sir.”

“Oh?”

“For, ah, delicate reasons, sir.”

“I thought so,” Kylo said, sadly. “I knew, as soon as I’d said it. He didn’t react as though I’d said something terribly rude. I thought he’d be angry. But he was _hurt_.”

“Well. Yes, sir. It is to be expected.”

Kylo fixed his eyes upon Stephens. “Tell me then. You know something. Tell me.”

“It is a delicate matter, sir.” Stephens felt his master’s gaze bore into him, took a breath and continued. “Young Hux’s mother is a particular sore point. He is Sir Brendol’s son, but not Lady Maratelle’s.”

“Ah,” Kylo said.“I didn’t know that. I don’t follow the gossip. I’d hang around with Dameron and Thornalley if I were interested in that sort of thing.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“His mother was—” and Stephens lowered his voice even though he and Ren were the only people present— “below stairs.”

“Oh.”

“She had to give him up. And eventually, leave the household.”

Kylo’s mouth hung open in shock.

“So she _did_ abandon him. I had no idea,” he said.

His mood soon went from a simmer to a boil.

“Damn Snoke! Damn him!”

“Your employer, sir?”

“Yes! I’ll bloody have him for this.” Kylo was pacing around the room now. “He told me to say it!”

“Sir?”

“He told me that Hux was getting too big for his boots and needed put in his place. And told me he’d been saying things about me. Which may not even be bloody true! Damn the old bastard!” He leant against the back of his armchair to gather himself. “Huh. Not the best choice of words, perhaps.”

“Perhaps not, but understandable,” Stephens said.

“Snoke said Hux needed to be put in his place and suggested I should throw some jibe about his mother abandoning him.” Kylo was gesturing wildly. “I thought he meant Maratelle Hux swanning off to the south of bloody France!”

“Perhaps he did, sir.”

“No. No, he bloody knew. He had that look in his eye. Pleased with himself. He’s been making a god damned fool of me.”

“It would unfortunately seem that he has been extremely dishonourable, sir. In my view.”

“Stephens. I am absolutely going to make this man pay. He will rue the day.”

“I don’t doubt it, sir,” Stephens said, before being excused.

Kylo calmed a little, and called his valet again.

“Stephens?”

“Sir?”

“Get me Cliff Mayhew on the telephone.”

Stephens made his way to the apparatus with sedate purpose, rather like a sailing ship approaching port. He lifted it and spoke to the operator. “Chelsea 512, please.” He waited, and asked for Mr Mayhew, informing him that Mr Ren wished to speak to him.

Kylo stood beside him, fidgeting, and Stephens handed the receiver over, before departing the room.

“Cliff. It’s me. I got your note.”

“Oh, heavens, I was starting to think you’d deserted us.”

“Not of my own volition,” Kylo said. “Listen. Tell me. Did you speak to Armitage Hux at the exhibition?”

“I did! We all did.”

“You _all_ did?”

“Yes. He was loitering, and then approached Claudey’s sculpture, and I think Roddy was about to give him some kind of short shrift, but he looked so, well, forlorn.’

“Folorn?”

“Yes. He didn’t have any of his horrid little hangers on with him, and absent the group, he does cut a rather melancholy figure.”

“Hmm. Yes.” That was, Kylo realised the word. Melancholy. And forlorn. But only when he didn’t realise he was being observed.

“And the thing is, well, we found ourselves with something in common, you see.”

“You found yourselves with something in common? How?”

“He was there to see you. And you weren’t there. And, see, we were there for Claudey and Ernie, but you were expected too, and we were missing you.”

“Oh. Did you speak about me? Behind my back?”

“Not really. It was more — we commiserated, awkwardly, and then he went away.”

“I see.”

“And we spoke about _him_ behind his back.”

“Right,” Kylo said.

“He said you’d been kept behind at the factory.”

“That’s right.”

“Roddy and Una were quite keen we didn’t say anything to you, since Mr Snoke has his reasons for things. But I thought, well, hang it all, and jotted a quick note.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Oh, good.”

“Cliff, I’m going to tell you. Things are going to change. We might have to find a new benefactor.”

“Oh. Gosh. Well. Paint doesn’t exactly grow on trees you know.”

“I’m going to do what I can to keep the money coming. But I’m not going to put up with Snoke any longer.”

“Gosh.”

“Cliff. Hux was there because he wanted to see me? You’re sure of this?”

“Oh yes. Straight up admitted it, when challenged.”

“Huh. Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Una said he mustn’t.”

“Damn her!”

“She was worried about you!”

“I’ve been an absolute fool. Tell everyone I’m sorry.”

“Of course.”

“I have to decide what I’m going to do next.”

“You’ll still be in touch, won’t you?”

“Yes. But keep this hush, alright? I don’t want this getting back to Snoke on any condition.”

“Of course. I understand.”

 

***

 

The next evening was Stephens’ night off, and he chose to spend it at the King of Prussia, where he joined Kay Ford and Arnold Wallis for a cool refreshing drink.

“So,” Kay Ford was saying, “it turns out that young Mr Hux _is_ very much in the mix with young Mr Ren.”

“And thus the source of their problems is each other,” Wallis said.

“Well, in actual fact, no,” said Stephens.

“Oh?”

“Their employer is to blame, I'm sorry to say.”

Ford nodded thoughtfully.

“Keep this between ourselves, of course,” Stephens cautioned. “It seems that their boss has been putting them deliberately at loggerheads. Telling lies about one to the other.”

Ford nodded again. “That would explain some of the low moods young Mr Hux has found himself in.”

“The boss, from what Mr Ren tells me, took pleasure in egging each of them on to be harsher with one another than they’d otherwise be.”

“Gosh,” said Wallis. “How absolutely rotten.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that young Mr Ren can be sharp-tongued entirely of his own volition, but he does draw the line somewhere.”

 

***

 

Kylo Ren chose to be decisive. His decisions were not always the best, but when he took them, he took them.

He was going to let Snoke have it. For too long he had allowed his patron and benefactor to dictate terms to him.

Damn it, Armitage Hux had been right. It wasn’t seemly for him to be an apprentice. He should not have a master. He was Kylo Ren, of the Knights of Ren. He was a prince of the Grand Duchy of Alderaan.

He entered, bullishly, into Snoke’s office.

“Kylo Ren,” Snoke said. “To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?”

“I am not satisfied.”

“Not satisfied? And whose fault might that be?”

“Not satisfied with _you_. And the way you’ve been… approaching things.” Kylo was gaining in confidence now. He took a step closer to Snoke’s desk. “You’ve been using me.”

Shock flashed across the old man’s face for a second. “Silence, boy.”

“I’m not your _boy_.”

Kylo loomed over Snoke, who seemed to have shrivelled like a walnut in its shell.

“I don’t want,” he said, “to have to make a fuss.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It could be. Unless you start doing better by me.”

Snoke stood up and looked steadily at Kylo across the desk. “You, my apprentice, disappoint me. I thought you would be great. Perhaps I shall have to start again.”

Kylo shrugged and shook his head. “Start again, if you want. But first you owe me what’s mine. And the Knights, too.”

“The Knights? What do you think I want with a mob of artists and poets,” Snoke spat.

“You were stringing them along. And stringing me along.”

“What do you want? Everyone has a price, and I shall find yours, Benjamin.”

Kylo glowered at him.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with the business,” Snoke said.

“I don’t want the business.”

“But young Hux does. And if he weren’t to have it…”

“I don’t care about your scheming,” Ren said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, so it’s money you want. Greedy, grasping child.”

“Give me money if you like. But it’s freedom I want.”

Snoke laughed.

Ren was undeterred. “I expect to be doing a lot more independent study. I am not your possession.”

“Have some days off if it bothers you that much,” Snoke said. “And I see you looking out of the window. Is it my home that fascinates you? You think you’d get your hands on Supremacy Hall and leave an old man out of house and home?”

“If that’s what you think it takes to buy my loyalty.”

Kylo left with an awkward sense that he had failed in his mission. He’d meant to tell Snoke exactly where to get off, but it had descended into childish bitterness.

If he were to weigh things up honestly, in the plus column went the fact that Snoke didn’t seem to suspect that Hux had anything to do with this. As far as Snoke knew, Kylo thought he had some leverage over him and Snoke had seen things mainly in terms of money.

He would have to talk to Hux about it. They’d have to get themselves on the right page before deciding how to proceed.

And that meant he would need to offer an apology.

First, he would need to clear his head. He went down to the first floor, and made his way to the double doors that led out onto the flat roof. He took off his jacket, and hung it on the doorknob. Shirt sleeves rolled up, he was ready to ready run through a few repetitions of his physical practice.

Either the energies of life and nature and the universe would flow through him and bring him to harmonious equilibrium, as Uncle Luke had always been trying to teach him, or he would at least be distracted enough from thinking about how he ought to have better managed his conversation with Snoke that he wouldn’t burst a vital blood vessel.

Either would do.

 

 

***

 

The physical exercise complete, Ren rolled down his sleeves and picked up his jacket. It had worked up to a point, but as he went back indoors, the reality of the situation facing him began to sink in.

Kylo Ren was not a man accustomed to giving apologies. He preferred menace, or dramatic retreat. To be in a situation where he was required to bare something of his soul and offer it up like a morsel on a dish — this was unfamiliar and deeply sticky territory. He was was not a man habitually seized with trepidation, but it had him firmly in its grasp as he walked the corridor down to Hux’s office.

“I need to talk to you,” he announced, abruptly.

“Not now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides.

“You’re _sorry_?”

“For what I said about your mother.”

“I should think so.”

“It went too far. It all went too far.” Kylo sighed.

“Yes. It did.”

“I’ve been stupid.”

Hux said nothing to that.

“He told me to say it,” Kylo blurted.

Hux frowned and leaned forward. “He _what_?”

“Mr Snoke. He was talking about you. He said I should throw in some jibe about your absent mother if I wanted to get under your skin.”

“Well, you certainly did that,” Hux said, with bitterness.

“I didn’t know. I thought he meant Lady Maratelle. Going to Cannes and Nice and the Alps and all of that.”

Hux blinked at him. “Oh. Oh. Well, that actually does makes sense, of a sort.”

“But _he_ didn’t mean her. I’m sure he didn’t. He meant me to say it to be hurtful. Which was dishonourable, and I regret my part in it.”

“So — you _know_ he didn’t mean her. How? Who told you?”

“Stephens. My valet.”

“Oh. The servant grapevine. Of course,” said Hux, seeming a little deflated.

“I’m sorry,” Kylo said, one apology coming a lot easier now that the first one had opened up the way. It was much the same as with oysters, or Russian vodka, he found.

“Right,” Hux said. “Well. I accept it. And now we know it was Snoke, putting you up to it.”

“Yes. And I know you didn’t touch my car.”

“Thank you. _Finally_.”

“It was a very convincing story. Two of the technicians, supposedly, saw you do it.”

“And you believed that?”

“Well, yes! At first. But then I was less sure. And I hadn’t spoken to them myself.”

“Of course you bloody hadn’t.”

Kylo threw up his hands in exasperation. “ _Now_ I know Snoke lied to me, but — _at the time_ — don’t you see?”

Hux thought for a moment, making a strong effort to be charitable, an effort to which he was unaccustomed. It _would_ have been asking a bit much to expect Ren to assume Snoke to be lying, right off the bat. “Yes. I suppose I do.”

“Good.”

“It’s a very nice car,” Hux said, remembering Thornalley’s advice about honey and vinegar.

“Thank you.”

“Do you race it at all? There are a couple of chaps at my club who race cars. Never really been an interest of mine, but…”

“I used to.”

“What made you stop?”

“What do you think?”

Hux nodded. “Do you ever think of starting again?”

Ren brushed his hair out of his eyes with the back of a hand. “Yes. There’s a race coming up I would have liked to have taken part in, down on the south coast. Against Poe Dameron, Tallie Lintra, the likes of them.”

“I know Poe Dameron,” Hux said. “Not well.”

“Terrible showoff.”

“Yes. Handsome devil.”

Kylo’s face twitched.

“And doesn’t he know it,” Hux said.

“You, ah, went to the exhibition.”

“Oh, so they told you.”

“Eventually. Clifford Mayhew dropped me a line about it, and I finally spoke to him a couple of nights ago.”

“What were you _doing_ , waiting for the moon to be in the right phase?”

“Snoke said—”

“Oh. Of course.”

—“He said I shouldn’t have dealings with the Knights until I’d proven that I could display focus.”

“Kylo? You’re talking out of the back of your neck.”

“It’s… you wouldn’t understand.”

“No. No, I’m certain I wouldn’t.”

“You went to the exhibition. Why? Because I’d mentioned it?”

“Yes. I thought… oh I don’t know what I thought. Wanted to prove I wasn’t as boring as you imagined.”

“I see,” Kylo said, a little awkwardly.

“Look,” said Hux, getting the conversation more or less back on track. “We are, without doubt, both agreed that Snoke can’t be trusted.”

“We are.”

“I’m not sure where we go from here.”

“I’ve spoken to him.”

“And?”

“And not much,” Kylo said, mournfully. “Can’t help feeling he fobbed me off rather. Damn it. I ought to have knocked his damn block off.”

“Well,” Hux said. “We shan’t let him mess us about any longer. If he says anything about you, I shan’t believe it, and if he tells you anything about me, the same.”

“Yes,” said Kylo. “But we’ll pretend. Not let him catch on.”

“Quite.”

“And keep each other posted.”

“Yes.”

Guy Thornalley was not so much of a fool as he looked after all, thought Hux. Or at least, if he were, it was the kind of foolishness that paid off.

 

***

 

Poe and Guy were taking a stroll through Green Park. The weather was pleasant, and the paths were thick with nannies pushing babies in prams. The topic of conversation between Poe and Guy was, unsurprisingly, the situation in which they had found themselves enmeshed. It was time to compare notes with Armitage Hux, and see if he might be persuaded to put his shoulder to the wheel of righteousness, for a change. 

“So, how did you get on with Hux?”

“I’m worried he might be starting to get cold feet,” Guy said. “What happened is I invited him over to my place, but he said he’d rather not be seen.”

“Not be seen? Whatever for?”

“Heaven knows. Either his father’s on the loose, or he thinks he’s going to lose face with his friends if he’s seen talking to us too often.”

“Ugh,” said Poe, rolling his eyes. “Lose face? With that lot?”

“I know. It’s positively teeth-gritting.”

“Alright. Let’s have lunch somewhere that’s not in the absolute thick of it.”

“I know,” said Guy, “there’s a little French place. Took Iffy there. It’s quite tucked away — very little chance we’ll run into anyone we know.”

“Alright. You try and sell the idea to Hux, then.”

 

***

 

Hux agreed to the luncheon appointment.

Poe and Guy made sure to be there fifteen minutes before the allotted time. Poe, not wishing to simply sit, perused the menu, and ordered a pot of rillettes and some toast, a plate of mixed hors d’oeuvres, and a bottle of wine.

Hux arrived exactly on time, with a nervous, harried look about him. He scanned the room for Poe and Guy, and came to sit down with them.

Poe poured him a glass of wine and invited him to dig into the pressed pork and toasts.

“I know why I’m here,” Hux said.

Thornalley pulled out a notebook and set it down among the hors d’oeuvres.

“Listen, Armitage. I’m to take it you’re not entirely satisfied with your employer?”

“Could say that, yes.”

“And you have some suspicions.”

“I do.”

“Right. Well, we have heard a thing or two about him, and it doesn’t make for good reading.”

Hux’s gaze darted to the notebook.

“He has mining interests, doesn’t he,” Poe said in a hushed tone.

“Yes. There’s something not right about them, I believe.”

“You’d be right. We have word that there are serious irregularities.” He took a breath. “Money-laundering. There’s a mine in Mozambique that exists almost for the sole purpose. Barely anything actually comes up out of the ground.”

“You have heard, you say. You have word. From whom?”

“Reliable source,” said Poe.

“That’s not all,” Guy said. “Kidnappings. Racketeering.”

“Really?”

“A spate of kidnappings in the Niger Delta and down in southern Africa, and some nasty business that had the locals crying witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft?”

“You aren’t meeting this with the brutal scorn I’d have imagined,” Poe said.

“No,” Armitage said, pondering. “Snoke is rather interested in the esoteric. Not that I believe in witchcraft in the slightest, of course.”

“Of course.”

“But he does go in for a lot of mumbo jumbo, and I wouldn’t put it past him giving the impression of sorcery, to get his way. No scruples, you know.”

“That’s what we think has been happening. According to our source.”

“He _can_ be quite intimidating, for such an old man. I mean, I think even Kylo Ren is intimidated by him and he’s, well, built like the proverbial brick outhouse.”

Poe nodded.

“I used to think Ren was just being silly,” Hux said. “With this whole ‘apprentice’ thing.”

“Apprentice?”

“Yes, Snoke calls Ren his apprentice, like they’re tradesmen.”

“Or Masons,” said Guy.

Hux wrinkled his brow. “I don’t _think_ Snoke is a Mason. Seen nothing to suggest it. If he does belong to an organisation, it’s not them.”

“But a similar, uh, dynamic?” wondered Poe.

“Yes.”

The waitress brought their main courses.

About two thirds of the way through, Guy looked at his notes. “You say he’s very old. Would you say he was either scarred on the cheek —”

“Yes!”

“— Or that he might be described as having a ‘wizened face like a skull’?”

“Absolutely,” Hux said. “Oh, absolutely. That’s him to a tee. Like one of those old tortoises at the Zoo.”

“Well, that backs up our source.”

“Ah, good. Glad to have been of help.”

“There’s more, actually — some quite simple fraud and false accounting. Which is where you might come in.”

“This sounds like you’re asking a favour.”

“It’s more a ‘you scratch my back and I scratch yours’ sort of setup.”

“Mutual benefit,” Thornalley added.

“How so?”

“You’d prefer him out of the way so you can get on with your research work without being pushed around?”

“Yes.”

“Well, in order to get him out of the way, we need hard evidence. The sort you might be able to come up with.”

“Ah no. Tried that. Very nearly got caught.”

“It’d be different this time. You’d have backup.”

“What sort of backup.”

“Well, the police…” Thornalley began, and saw uncertainty on Hux’s face. “Look, I know nobody wants to be caught up in police business, but we are talking about quite a lot of rather serious crime.”

“I know. That is what I want. To get him out of the way.”

“Now, also, Lady Organa-Solo…”

“Ugh. Not _her_?”

“Yes. Her. She has an interest in sorting this out. Would you speak to her, and if not to her, then the police?”

Hux sighed. “Yes. Alright.” He could see the benefit to himself.

A woman in a big apron came out of the kitchen, and went to a table of diners. “Everything good?” she asked.

“Yes, lovely, thank you so much.”

Pleased with the vote of confidence, the chef went back into the kitchen.

Something had happened to Hux. He was staring down at his plate, and his arms were shaking.

“How could you _do_ this to me? How _could_ you? How did you know, anyway?”

“What? Hux, we haven’t done anything to you. I’ve no idea what you mean. I thought we’d just agreed everything.”

“You don’t?” he asked, tentatively, glancing up under his eyebrows.

“No. I haven’t the faintest.”

“That woman. The one who just came in. The chef.”

“Mm, yes, what about her?”

“You didn’t know. Alright.” His shoulders rose and fell and he sighed a deep lungful. “I have to do this myself.” He closed his eyes and breathed out through pursed lips in an attempt to reinvigorate himself. Then he took a sip of his wine.

“You’re alright?” Poe asked.

Hux shushed him, and then beckoned the waitress over.

“The chef, is that ‘Tante Sylvie’?”

“Yes indeed, sir. Well, Sylvia, her proper name is,” she added _sotto voce_. “She is an Englishwoman, not a French one: we Frenchify it for the advertising, you understand.”

“Yes yes of course, whatever,” Hux said. “Do you happen to know, if she was ever in domestic service?”

“Yes, indeed she was and won’t mind me telling you so. She came into a sum of money, saved and made it bigger, left the service, ran a cookery school for a while and now here we are.”

“I see. I expect this was her dream,” Hux said, with a sweet look of melancholy on his face that neither Dameron nor Thornalley had never seen before.

“Yes, sir. Does that answer your question? Do you know Chef Sylvia from somewhere?”

“There was a house. I think I remember her,” Hux said. “That will be all, thank you.”

The waitress went back to her post.

“She came into a sum of money,” Hux said, quietly to himself. He sighed deeply. “I know where that came from.”

Thornalley cleared his throat. “Is this — are you alright?”

“Dameron. Thornalley,” he said, speaking like a man in a dream, “I think that woman is my mother.”

“Oh gosh.”

“Armitage. We honestly had no idea.”

“Really?”

“None at all.”

“You chose this place with no idea of the significance.”

“None! I chose it because I’d come here with Miss Morton last week and thought the food rather good, and the location nicely out-of-the-way.”

Hux looked down at his plate and shook his head. “Everyone knows things but me. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. Kylo knew.”

“ _Kylo_ knew?”

“Servant gossip got back to him. He’d said something to me and — oh, look it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to go into it.”

“Alright.”

“Are you sure you’re alright, though?” Thornalley asked, again.

“As far as I need to be,” Hux said. “Think I’ll stay on here for a while. Speak to her. Once everyone else is gone.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“Tell Lady Organa-Solo that I’ll hear her out. Ford will take any message.”

“That’s good of you, Armitage. Thank you.”

“And the police?”

“Yes, and the police.”

“We’ll leave it with Leia.”

And so Poe Dameron and Guy Thornalley paid their part of the bill, left a nice tip for the waitress (and Thornalley, being sentimental, left an extra little tip for Armitage’s mother), and left.

Armitage Hux was the last lunch customer in the restaurant. The waiting staff had been giving him the sharp and pointy eye for several minutes. Finally, he beckoned one of them over.

“Is Chef still in the kitchen,” he asked. “I would appreciate a word.”

“I shall go and see, sir. One moment.”

Hux bit down on his cheeks and breathed heavily. It was going to happen.

“Sir,”

He turned his head. She was there. Apron, white jacket, long skirts, and the face he remembered.

And she approached, taking hesitant steps.

“It’s you, isn’t it? Armitage.”

“Yes,” he said, restraining himself from leaping up and running into her arms.

“You can go,” she said to her waiter and waitress. “It’s alright. I’ll finish up.” They slipped back into the kitchen; to get their coats and go until evening service, or to lurk out of sight and listen.

And then she was sitting beside him.

“I thought,” she said. “I thought I caught a glimpse of someone who could be you. Sometimes I do, you know. A flash of ginger hair and something in me… my heart leapt for a second.”

“I saw you. I was dining with friends. You spoke to some diners on another table.”

She was holding his hand now.

“Armie.”

“How long,” he began. “How long have you been here? How long and I didn’t know?”

“We’ve been open for four years.”

“You were here all that time. I could have found you. You could have found me. Why didn’t you?”

“I was afraid. They made me sign all legal papers and that. I didn’t know what might’ve happened if I’d tried.”

“Damn the legal papers.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was scared.” She looked at him. “I expect you know what he’s like.”

“I do.”

“Are you alright? Doing well I expect?”

“Yes. Actually, you know, he cut me off, the devil.”

“Oh, Armie.”

“But I have a job now. A good job.”

“Oh, I’m glad.”

“It’s in industry. I do research.”

“You were always such a clever little boy. I knew you’d do something if you set your mind to it.”

“Yes. So, well, I don’t have to answer to him any more.”

“That’s good. How is the work?”

“Stimulating.”

“Come into the kitchen. I can’t let you leave empty handed.”

It was just the same as when he was a boy, sneaking down to the kitchen for biscuits and soft-centred jumbles and fruit wrapped in wax paper.

“Have these,” she said, and gave him two coiled-up flaky pastries. “Palmiers. I learned to make these when I was under Anatole Penasse at a big house in Hertfordshire.”

“Is that where you learned all the French cooking?”

“Here and there. Mostly with Chef Anatole and then I took a formal course.”

“Gosh,” Armitage said. “That’s so enterprising.”

She smiled at him. “That’s the way the world turns.”

“You’re so right.”

“I keep in touch with former colleagues, from houses and the cookery school, you know.”

“That’s nice.”

“I hope you don’t think I’m being over-familiar. I mean, you’re still… above stairs.”

“Not at all. You couldn’t be. I mean that. You simply couldn’t be.”

“Good. Do you remember a girl who worked with me called Geraldine Jackson? You liked her cooking.”

“Did she make those wonderful pies?”

“She did. She made Cook and her mistress recently took on a great big house. Birren Great Hall.”

“Oh. Yes. I was there a few weeks ago.”

“She said so.”

“Oh. So you’ve been keeping tabs on me?”

“Not so much like that. I didn’t know what else to do.”

She gathered him up into her arms and for a moment he was the small boy who snuck into the kitchens to see her, to be fussed over by her and the other kitchen maids.

“How much?” he asked, sniffing back tears. “How much did he pay you? This is a nice enough place. How much did he pay you?”

“Enough that I could save and take a course open my own place. Not enough that I could do it without saving my own wages for a little while.”

“He needn’t have bothered. Everyone knows I’m not Maratelle’s.”

“I missed you. Every day.”

“I missed you too.”

“I’m glad you’ve got friends,” she said.

“They aren’t really my friends.”

“Oh?”

“Rather trifling gentlemen, I’ve always thought, Dameron and Thornalley,” he sniffed. “But they’ve been not bad to me. So perhaps I’ve been hasty to judge.”

“Perhaps you have,” his mother said.

“You’ll have dinner service soon. I should go. Though I don’t want to.”

“I know.”

“I’ll keep in touch. Look. Have my card. Call any time. My man, Ford, will take any message.”

“Kay Ford?”

“Yes. Of course, you’d have known him when he was a footman.”

“I did. Nice man. Very proper. He looks after you well?”

“He does.”

“Good. I’m glad someone has been looking after you.” She put her hands on his arms and stood back from him. “My boy. All grown up.”

Hux headed home in a daze.

It was in a daze that he telephoned first Lady Organa-Solo, and then, from the details she gave him, a detective inspector at Scotland Yard.


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

Hux took a taxi to the police station where he was due to meet with the police inspector. He felt nicely important, as though he were being given another chance to do something and make a difference.

Inspector Draven was serious and businesslike, which Hux appreciated. He asked Hux all sorts of questions about the layout of the First Order research facility, the car parking, the security guard’s hut, the hours kept by various members of staff. Hux expressed his wariness about going on another spying mission into Snoke’s office, but it turned out that all Inspector Draven needed him to do was to take an impression of the key to Snoke’s office, in a lump of modelling clay provided.

He looked at the lump of clay, back up at the inspector, and, with perhaps a trace of sourness, agreed. After a second thought, he suggested that he might be able to smooth the way for Draven’s men to get into the factory building via the main entrance, at night. Draven agreed quite promptly, and Hux felt more useful — and thus more satisfied with his lot.

 

***

 

It may have been a small mission, but it was a mission, and it required planning and precision.

Once he had achieved the objective, the police would owe him. Lady Organa-Solo would owe him. Guy Thornalley and Poe Dameron would owe him. He thought, too, that Kylo Ren really ought to owe him.

Armitage Hux was experiencing the unfamiliar sensation of doing something right and good, if not, given his animosity towards Snoke, selfless. He found he rather liked the taste.

Someone might be proud of him, if she ever found out.

 

***

 

A short period of curiosity had Hux figuring out just how the electric lock on the factory main door worked. He calculated the time he would need to perform his operation. If he cut just one little wire, there would be no power to the electromagnet and the mechanism would be non-functional.

It was done, and he slipped the wirecutters back into his trouser pocket. Now to get back to the laboratories before he was missed.

“Ah, Mr Hux. Been looking all over for you.” It was Mandetat, the young technician with the eyebrows.

“Have you. Well I’m here now.”

“You weren’t answering the intercom in your office.”

“I was momentarily called away. Nothing that need concern us now,” Hux said, keeping his cool. “I do just need to pop into my office for a moment.”

Mandetat waited outside, and Hux was able to get the plasticine lump out of his pocket and safely into the top drawer of his desk. He hid it under a notebook, just in case.

“Now, where were we? A new run with the beam-forming equipment, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. We’re all set up.”

“Excellent,” Hux said, and he followed Mandetat into the lab.

 

***

 

Hux’s walk to the train station that evening was not unencumbered by anxiety. He fretted. The situation would soon be in the hands of Scotland Yard, and the gods. He would hand the plasticine impression of the key to Snoke’s office over to a plain clothes detective at the station, and that would be that.

 

He wondered if he ought to take the earliest train the next day, to be able to see the dawn raid in progress. Part of him fantasised about concealing himself away in a bush just inside the grounds, to observe the detectives at work. But after his previous experience of hiding, he knew it was best not to risk it.

 

***

 

The next day, workers and technicians noticed nothing out of the ordinary, except for Hux looking a little more anxious than usual.

Hux himself was starting to think that nothing had happened. Perhaps tomorrow would be the day.

Today was, in fact, the day.

It was about a quarter past three when the police arrived. Hux looked out of the window to see two police cars at the front of the building, and a uniformed officer making his way round to the back, presumably to stop anyone from getting away unchallenged. This was it. He couldn’t resist making his way towards Snoke’s office where surely the action would be.

Haring down the back stairs came Kylo Ren. Their paths converged.

“Have you seen?” Hux said, feigning surprise, “It’s the police! I wonder what they can want.”

Before Ren could answer, they heard Snoke’s voice calling out. “I am an old man! Surely this is unnecessary.” But Detective Inspector Draven seemed to find the whole thing entirely necessary, as did the two burly policemen who accompanied him out of Snoke’s office, with Snoke himself bundled between them like a laundry basket.

“Walter Boudewijn Snoke,” the detective inspector said, barely stumbling over the tricky middle bit, “you are under arrest on suspicion of fraud, false accounting, embezzlement and attempted kidnap.”

Dr Datoo was looking on, regarding the unfortunate Snoke with his usual equanimity.

“You do not have to say anything,” continued the detective inspector, “but anything you do say will be taken down and given in evidence.”

Snoke grimaced at the officer.

“Take him away, lads.”

Hux, and Ren, and Datoo, followed quietly down the stairs as Snoke was frogmarched out of the door and into the waiting police van, followed by another two officers carrying cardboard boxes full of files.

“We took a bunch of other stuff, guv,” one of the policemen was saying. “In case we missed something this morning.”

“So that’s that,” Hux said, under his breath.

“What now? Do we carry on?” asked Datoo.

“I’m not sure,” Hux said. “Now might be time to take a break.”

Kylo suddenly turned and ran upstairs, taking the stairs two at a time.

“I wonder what’s got him,” Datoo said.

“I’d best go and see.”

They heard raised voices, rendering it more urgent for Hux to go upstairs and investigate.

Kylo was at Snoke’s office door, remonstrating with a policeman.

“You can’t come in here, sir.’

“But I need to!”

“It would be considered tampering with evidence, sir.”

“You took away boxes of evidence.”

Hux loudly cleared his throat. “Ren. Best not antagonise them.”

“That’s fine coming from you,” Ren said, but allowed himself to be led into Hux’s office.

“What was that all about?”

Ren sighed. “I don’t want them to have files about me.”

“You don’t think you’re implicated in the dirty business, do you?”

“No. It’s not that.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s my apprenticeship papers.”

“Oh.”

“It’s embarrassing. I signed all sorts of things. I don’t want it to get out.”

“You don’t want people knowing what a fool you made of yourself for Snoke. Well. Join the bloody club, I should say.”

“I suppose.”

 

***

 

While all this was going on, Leia was reading another telegram from Han, this time sent from Karachi.

AKBAR IN FINE FORM STOP REY CAN NOT GET ENOUGH OF HIS FISH CURRY STOP LUKE V WELL STOP HAVE YOU NABBED MR S YET STOP HOME VIA BASRA CAIRO ATHENS ETC

"We have," she said softly. "and now comes the difficult part."

 

***

 

Hux turned up to work the next day, uncertain as to what he was going to find. He found Kylo Ren, looking wistful.

“Whatever he was doing caught up with him,” Kylo said.

“It did. Are you glad he’s gone?”

“Yes. Very.”

Hux nodded.

“Did you have something to do with this?”

Hux looked away, and, despite himself, he blushed. “I may have had. A little. I hope you’re not—”

—“We were going to keep one another updated,” Kylo said.

“I’m sorry. There wasn’t the time.”

A car pulled up to the main gate. There appeared to be some back and forth between the driver and the guard.

“Oh, heavens,” Kylo said. Hux glanced at him, and he was trembling.

“What is it?“

“I think it’s my mother.”

“ _That’s_ your mother?” It was barely believable. “ _Lady Organa-Solo_ is your mother?”

Kylo mumbled a yes.

“Oh, hell.”

Ren and Hux both watched as Leia got out of the car.

“Are you going to speak to her?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I think you should. I, er, spoke to my mother recently. After a very long period of not seeing her at all.”

“Ah,” Ren said, sounding oddly far away. “Would you recommend it, as an experience.”

“Yes. Yes, very much so.”

Kylo walked slowly, and Hux would almost have said unsteadily, to the stairs.

“We’re the most senior employees here. It would be only polite if we were to both go and say hello,” Hux said. He let Kylo go in front of him on the stairs.

Kylo reached the bottom, and Leia Organa-Solo was standing in the reception foyer.

“Mr Ren,” Miss Unamo said, “Mr Hux, this lady has no appointment and—”

“— It’s alright,” Kylo said. “You can go, actually.”

Unamo hesitated behind her desk.

”You can go,” said Hux, and she went, leaving Kylo and his mother facing one another, and Hux somehow backing Kylo up.

“Mother,” Kylo said. “You’re here.”

“Benjamin,” she said.

They stood and looked at each other, and then she beckoned him forward. He stepped forward in two big strides and folded his arms around her, and it really was extraordinary, when you put the two of them together, how petite and practically pocket-sized she was, and how very tall and broad her son was.

This was a mere sample of the thoughts that were swimming and flurrying around Armitage’s head at this juncture. Among the others were ‘so his name is Benjamin? Since when is his name Benjamin? Why was I not told?’ and thoughts of his own mother, and how it had been meeting her that had given him, like a bolt from the heavens, the sudden impetus to do whatever was needed to get rid of Mr Snoke.

Mother and son broke their embrace, and Hux felt Leia’s powerful gaze on him. “Armitage, too,” she said.

“Ah. Hello. Good morning, Lady Organa-Solo. It’s, ah, a pleasure and a surprise to have you here.”

“I’m sure it is. Thank you, Armitage. You did well. I expect the police will be in touch with you soon about what happens to all this.”

Kylo looked at Hux, then at his mother, then back to Hux. “You were in this _together_? In _cahoots_?”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly. Armitage only became involved at a very late date.”

“But you were involved, mama? With the police operation?”

“Of course! Have you been away for so long that you forget your own mother?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised,” Kylo muttered.

Hux realised that he was the one who had to take charge of the situation, somehow. “Shall we perhaps go to the canteen? There shouldn’t be anyone there. We can at least have a cup of tea.”

He escorted them there, and sat them down at a table. Then he made a pot of tea from the big samovar, and set pot, cups and milk jug in front of Ren and his mother.

“It’s a proper little work place,” Leia said. “Not what I would have expected.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t know your — Mr Snoke — I didn’t know he had this side to him. Which is a failing on my part.”

Kylo sighed.

“It wasn’t just me, you know,” Leia said. “Your father was involved, too.”

“He… how? Huh. I suppose it figures that there’s nothing that doesn’t have Han Solo’s fingerprints on it somewhere.”

“We got a telegram about ten days ago, from Han and Rey and young Finn. Some crooked goings on in southern Africa that reminded Finn of some other crooked goings on in Nigeria. So that pricked up my ears, obviously. And there was a letter to follow, which arrived just a couple of days ago. Han mentioned First Order Industries by name.”

Kylo shook his head in disbelief. “And you tracked me down to here? What happened?”

“I did very recently find out you were working here alongside young Hux.”

“How?”

“Word gets about. I do wish I’d known earlier, as it happens.”

“Some friends of Lady Organa-Solo’s asked me to get in touch with her, about something which might be of mutual benefit. And that’s how we are where we are,” Hux said.

“Some friends?”

“If you must know it was Dameron and Thornalley from the club.”

“That pair? Figures.”

“They are good boys and very helpful, and to be quite honest you should make it your business to be nicer to them,” Leia said.

Kylo scowled, and Armitage’s lip twisted in amusement.

“Well. I should leave you to it,” Armitage said. “I ought to prepare for giving my full statement to the police — I assume they’re coming today. And there’s other work to get on with.”

He departed, leaving Leia and Kylo alone with their empty tea cups.

Kylo took a heavy breath.

“So, Ben? Are we going to be a family again?”

“Yes. Think so,” he said, and embraced his mother once more.

“Your father’s due home soon,” she said. “He’d love to see you.”

“I think I’d like that. Is Rey with him?”

“Yes.”

Kylo nibbled a thoughtful bottom lip. “I’ll try. I’m not good at being a brother.”

“You don't have to be. Just be a friend,” Leia said.

“I shall try.”

“You know I like spending a little time with Poe Dameron, and I love having Rey around the place, and knowing that she’s keeping your father company. But you’re my son. And you always will be.”

“Thank you,” Kylo said, his voice getting thick with the threat of tears. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“Snoke’s going to prison, isn’t he?”

“I should think so.”

“I didn’t realise how much he lied. I feel stupid.”

Leia patted her son’s hand. “Not stupid. Just misguided.” She leant closer and spoke softly. “Listen. I’ve been foolish too.’

Kylo looked at his mother from under his thick fringe of hair.

“I found out you were here and I didn’t come running," she said. "I could only do it once Snoke was out of the picture. I feel like a coward.”

“I’d have probably chased you away. Or run away. And Snoke would have been angry.”

“You were afraid of him.”

“Yes. And so were you.”

She smiled a teary, mother’s smile.

“Maybe — Mama? I need to go and speak to Armitage about something.”

“You go,” she said. “It looks like the two of you are making friends at last.”

“Yes,” Kylo said. “Something like that.”

 

***

 

Kylo found Armitage in a laboratory surrounded by wiring and coils and racks of measuring equipment.

“Hux,” he said.

“Kylo. Or is it Benjamin?”

“Kylo is best.”

“What do we do with all this?” Hux gestured at a rack of equipment. “Someone, some policeman or someone from some ministry or other, is going to come along and tell me that the whole jig is up with all of this.”

“They might not.”

“As far as I know, the work we were doing is completely legitimate. But how does it get untangled from Snoke’scriminal enterprises?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is my _job_ , Ren.”

“Mine too.”

“Ren, your mother is a princess. My mother is a cook — a lady chef, to be precise. My father has at the last count practically disowned me. I was trying to _be_ someone.”

Ren gave Hux a sad eyed look.

“Perhaps it’ll be sold as a going concern. Marconi’s could buy it. I suppose Datoo and I, and the chaps would come with the place like fixtures and fittings.”

“Hux,” Ren said again. “I wanted to say something.”

“Oh?”

“I’m sorry I was so mean to you.”

“It’s alright.”

“It wasn’t all Snoke.”

Kylo extended his hand. Hux took it, and not knowing what else to do with it, shook it. It was a normal handshake until he let it linger, and each man found himself drawn closer, and then somehow Kylo was opening his arms in a big bear hug, into which Hux sank with joyous relief.

“I was quite beastly to you at the start.”

“I was an ass, too,” Hux said. “An absolute ass. I’m not the nicest person, you know.”

“Neither am I.”

Hux folded his arms over Kylo’s broad warm back. “I’m going to try,” he said, “to be nice to you.”

“I think that would be good. I’m going to be nice to you too, you know.”

“I say, Kylo, I’m starting to feel like a tube of toothpaste with all this squeezing.”

“Sorry,” said Kylo, and disengaged.

“I’m not used to hugging,” Hux said. “Had more of it in the last week than in the last heaven knows how many years.”

“Oh. Well. There’s more of it to be had,” Kylo said. “If you’d like.” He took a step backwards toward the door. “I must, ah, get back to Mother.”

 

***

 

That evening, Kylo asked him if, rather than taking the train back to town as usual, if he’d want a lift back, in Kylo’s car.

Hux accepted, on the strict condition that Kylo drive carefully, and not like a damned racing driver. Kylo met that condition for approximately eighty five percent of the journey.

When Hux got out of the car, outside his residence, he found himself feeling quite out of sorts.

 

***

 

Detective Inspector Draven was good enough to keep Hux informed, and after three difficult days, let him know that although most of Snoke’s bank accounts had been frozen, the First Order account from which most of the factory operations were run was still current.

Hux called a meeting of his team, and let them know that work would be continuing, at least for the immediate future. He felt suddenly very proud of them all. A sense of responsibility settled about his shoulders, and buoyed up his heart. He rather found he liked it.

 

***

 

In mid July, there was another country house party, this time at the residence of one Mrs D’Acy, a friend of Leia Organa-Solo’s and of the Thornalley family.

Under the aegis of Leia’s wisdom and advice, Mrs D’Acy invited not only the whole Solo family, including Benjamin, but young Armitage Hux. She had been persuaded that the young man, while still capable of being quite an ass, did not wholly take after his execrable father, but had something of his mother in him.

Thornalley and Dameron, and Thornalley’s nice young lady, had of course been among the first names on the guest list.

 

***

 

A good evening had been had, and everyone had been very well entertained by Captain Solo’s stories, which would have been far less entertaining without Mr Chewbacca’s interjections. Miss Morton and young Rey hit it off immediately, and Mrs D’Acy had surveyed the jolly gathering with the genuine pride of a successful hostess.

In the morning, the servants were up early to be first in the line for hot water for their masters and mistresses, and for kettles to be boiled for tea.

Arnold Wallis caught Kay Ford looking a little concerned.

“What’s up, Kay,” he yawned. “You look bothered.”

“The master’s bed doesn’t appear to have been slept in. I’ve no idea where he is.”

Someone cleared their throat. It was John Stephens, valet to Kylo Ren.

“You can consider that mystery solved,” he said. “Your boss is quite safe and sound. I shall be bringing _two_ cups of tea to the young master this morning. If you catch my meaning.”

“Well I never,” said Ford.

Ford, thought Wallis, had a lot to learn.


End file.
